Visitors to the Liverpool Beer Festival raise their glasses to the rise in real ale sales
THE growing popularity of real ale among women and young people gave drinkers cause for celebration at the opening of this year’s Liverpool Beer Festival.
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Jean Pownceby, one of the founding members of the CAMRA Liverpool Beer Festival , toasts the opening of the 2011 festival
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Behind the bar
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John Bowan gets pouring the drinks
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Geoff Edwards, chairman of Liverpool CAMRA, and Mark Hensby, the managing director of the Liverpool Organic Brewery, toast the opening of The 2011 CAMRA Liverpool Beer Festival
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The crowds pack in to the launch of the beer festival
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Alfie Buxton, licensee of The White Star pub, is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award
The three-day event, held in the atmospheric surroundings of the Metropolitan cathedral crypt, was again sold out within hours of tickets going on sale.
More than 200 beers from around the country are on sale – and Jean Pownceby, a Liverpool and Districts Camra committee member and an organiser of the Women’s and Young People Festival event, says more people are now appreciating such real ales.
She said: “Women and young people are a good news story for real ale.
“Both groups are switching onto Britain’s national drink, and not only trying it but continuing to drink it on a regular basis, instead of lager and wine.
“This is a major turn- around. Indeed, the Cask Report found that it is women who are driving the growth in real ale sales.” The 2011 festival, which is sponsored by Liverpool Organic Brewery, is also celebrating the city’s landmark pubs.
As part of this, Alfie Buxton, licensee of the popular White Star pub, in Rainford Gardens, for the last 26 years, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by last year’s sponsors, the Caledonian Brewery.
