Lovers of the brewers’ art are poised to snap up guaranteed admission to the North’s biggest celebration of beer & cider. Advance tickets for all days of the Manchester Beer and Cider Festival are on sale from 1st August through the festival’s website.

Organised by the Greater Manchester branches of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA), the event returns to Manchester Central from Thursday 25th to Saturday 27st January 2018.

The festival attracts visitors from all over the world to Manchester, recently crowned cask beer capital of Britain. They pour through the doors to sample some of the very best beers and ciders from the UK’s booming brewing & cider making industries. Foreign beer fans are well catered for with an excellent selection from Europe and further afield.

The 2017 festival featured over 750 different beers and ciders, and drinkers obliged by downing over 62,000 pints. A change of catering proved a huge success, with some of the best local and national street food traders providing a choice of hot and cold food. Organisers are planning to exceed the 13,588 visitors and expect ticket demand to be high for the 2018 event.

Plans are in hand to enhance festival-goers’ experience with a series of tutored tastings run by acknowledged beer experts. As well as a CAMRA membership stand, there will be stalls selling beer memorabilia, books and a selection of traditional pub games to enjoy.

Festival Organiser Graham Donning said “We’re delighted to make Manchester Central our home once again. Each year, we review feedback from visitors to make the next one even better, so we will have some improvements to make drinkers more comfortable. They like the Manchester Central venue that has vast numbers of seats and more space to move around.

The main grumble – at least from male visitors – was the queue for toilets at our peak times! So we have arranged to increase provision, meaning gentlemen can spend more time sampling our wide selection of beers and ciders from Britain and further afield. And there will be a great choice of food and an interesting selection of fruit wines.

We’re open to the public for three days, but CAMRA members get the perk of a free-to-enter preview evening. We have a single entry price each day including refundable glass hire that minimises queues inside and outside the venue. Of course, buying tickets in advance is the best way of ensuring drinkers get in quickly to sample what will be a stunning selection of ales.”

With so many visitors from outside the region attracted to the festival, purchasing advance tickets has increased steadily each year. Although a number of tickets were retained for sale on the door in 2017, organisers are reviewing whether the popular sessions – Friday and Saturday – will have to become all ticket. Their message is that drinkers should not delay.

Tickets for the event are on sale from 9am on Tuesday 1st August via the festival website, www.mancbeerfest.uk

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