Featured beers to ‘whet the appetite’ at the 40th Norwich Beer Festival!

Beverages from all over the world will be presented during the annual six-day CAMRA Beer Festival, commencing 23th October and taking place at The Halls in Norwich.

With some festival specials to mark the 40th year, there will also be select ales served from wooden casks.

Festival organisers have tracked down beers originally brewed for the first beer festival, though sadly not at 1977 prices!  These include Banks’s (Marstons) bitter and mild.

The bitter has a distinct Northdown dry hop character, with a subtle clove-like taste derived from the Tetley yeast, whilst the mild has a sweet finish with a touch of dark fruit.

Also at the 1977 festival and set to reappear in 2017 is Davenports’ Highgate Old, with its warming aroma and hints of chocolate, fruit, liquorice and malt, plus Davenports’ original best bitter, with fruity bitterness.

Also making reappearances are Fullers ESB (bursting with cherry and orange, with malty toffee and caramel), Holdens Black Country Bitter (with an assertive hop character), Hook Norton’s Coper Ale (a premium dark red beer) and Hooky Bitter, plus Marstons Bass and Courage Directors.

And included in the revisiting beers are McMullen’s AK and Country Bitter, together with Sherherd Neame’s Master Brew, Theakston’s Old Peculiar and Wells Eagle IPA.

CAMRA will be offering award-winning ales and this year’s Featured Brewer are Triple FFF from Hampshire who are celebrate their 20th year.  Graham Trott established the brewery in 1997 and in 2012 handed the reins over to Sara Carter.

Their Altons Pride, a Golden brown session bitter, full bodied with a hoppy aroma, was previously voted Supreme Champion Beer of Britain in CAMRA’s annual London beer festival.

Graham and Sara both started out as home brewers, and there will be a special treat for home brewers as visitors will be able to sample winners of the Great Anglian Brew Off.

Home brewers from across the region have been given the opportunity to launch their own beer for the 40th Norwich Beer Festival as part of a competition held prior to the festival with Anglian Craft Brewers in association with CAMRA. The winners were matched with local commercial brewers.

Noman, a dark stout with a velvet mouthfeel and roasted aftertaste is a recipe by home brewer Charlie Abbot and brewed with Elmtree Brewery.  Golden Triangle Brewery have brewed a recipe by John Watson called Mosaical Cheers, a mosaic pale ale.  Wildcraft Brewery are presenting Wild Moonshadow, a dark and lightly spiced mild with hints of chocolate, smoke & stone fruits, developed by homebrewer and beer sommelier Mark Cade.

Other beers to watch out for are Boudicca’s Red Queen, a red ale brewed in Norfolk for the Autumn with fruit, berries and hops, with a tangy fresh hop and crystal rye.

Also watch out for Moonshine’s Blackberry Saison, a fruity beer, and Norwich Fat Cat Brewery IPA with a full-bodied and fruity flavour and winner of the Champion Beer of Norfolk 2017. And you can try Hoxne’s Heritage Old Ale, a Suffolk brew with a rich winter-warm style.

Also to look out for are the speciality beers – Adnams Cucumber Sour, Cromarty Red Rocker, Dorking’s Smokestack Lightnin’, Elgood’s Fruit Lambic and Lambic, Hop Studio’s Hellebock, Hoxne’s Defender, Kent Brewery’s Cobnut, Mauldons Octoberfest, Triple FFF Comfortably Numb, XT’s Animal Dark Saison (a Black Saison with Wakatu and Pacific Gem Hops, dry and fruity flavours with a rich dark roast malt), All Day Brewing Green Hop and Black Purl (a traditional wormwood bittered beer, popular up until Dickensian times!), Elmtree’s Terra Firma, Grain’s Rye Pale, S&P’s Green Hop (made with Fuggles, Goldings and Prima Donna Hops grown at the brewery) and Norwich-based Fat Cat Brewery’s Honey (with crystal malts and Norfolk honey) and Farmhouse Pale (unfined Saison style, brewed with a hint of black pepper and dried limes).

Vegan beers, (those which do not use fish derivatives in the fining process), include Beeston’s Old Stoatwobbler and gluten-free beers are also available in cask.

Norwich Beer Festival has real ales from the South Coast of England to the highlands of Scotland. 2016 saw the introduction of KeyKeg beers and this year there will be some aged cask beer and the introduction of mead.

The 2017 festival will also offer 80 different varieties of cider and perries, mostly from East Anglia.

The World Beer Bar, managed by Cheryl Cade, has grown and now hosts almost every Trappist brewery in the world, including some new and aged Orval.

For more details, including the latest music line-up at the 2017 CAMRA Norwich Beer Festival, visit www.norwichcamra.org.uk/festival/fest2017.htm