This page is dedicated to the 45-year history of the Norwich Beer Festival, and we’ll be adding to it as much information as we can around previous festivals, including the Festival logo, dates and times, programmes, organisers and staff, and changes to the format, as well as photos of the Festival.
If you have any information, documents or images from to previous festivals, especially the early years, we’d be delighted to add them to this page, with credits as appropriate. Please contact history@norwichbeerfestival.org.uk in the first instance.
The 2022 Festival re-introduced music, but on a reduced scale, with bands playing in Blackfriars Hall on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The Festival returned in 2021, despite a surge in COVID infections in early October. With massive uncertainty regarding attendance, the organisers focused on reducing fixed costs, by increasing the proportion of local brewery beers, and asking the breweries to supply a percentage of their orders as Sale or Return.
There was no Festival in 2020, due to the COVID pandemic – all pubs were closed throughout October, and many remained closed until April or May of 2021. When the Festival was first realised to be at risk, in March and April, the Branch decided to run a pub-based festival, along the lines of the City of Ale, with pub trails with prizes, over the week the beer festival would have taken place. Provisionally named Norwich Beer Festival Goes to the Pub, the event finally happened as the Norwich and Beyond Pub Festival, designed to support pubs after they reopened, and lasting the month of July 2021. The event was very successful, and was repeated in 2022.