Taking place at the Invisible Wind Factory, in the Northern Docklands over the weekend July 26 to 29, the event is now in its sixth year and attracts beer lovers and industry experts. Tony McDonough reports
More than 30 breweries are heading to Liverpool in July for the Craft Beer Expo 2018.
Taking place at the Invisible Wind Factory, in the Northern Docklands over the weekend July 26 to 29, the event is now in its sixth year and attracts beer lovers and industry experts.
The breweries will come from the UK and Europe and will bring more than 300 craft beers available to taste. Exhibitors include well-known names such as Beavertown and Brewdog, Northern Monk from Leeds, and Wylam from Newcastle.
Liverpool breweries, Black Lodge, which is located in the city Baltic Triangle area, and Vauxhall’s Mad Hatter will also be in attendance.
New format
As well as the move to a larger capacity venue to accommodate the thousands of festival-goers, July’s expo also sees a new format being introduced, with all of the breweries hosting their own bars for the first time, giving beer lovers the chance to talk to their favourite brewers first-hand.
Also new for this year is the addition of a gin terrace from The Ginsmiths of Liverpool, a city-based producer which hand-makes its gin in small batches. There’s also an outdoor cider bar, hosted by Hallets Real Cider.
Food offering
Chosen to compliment the beers on show, there will be a number of pop-up restaurants which include Middle-Eastern inspired street-food from Liverpool’s own Hafla Hafla, German sausage specialists, Get Wurst and Indian vegetarian street-food by Bundobust.
Live music is also on the bill and highlights include performances from DJs including; Pooky (Bonsai Hifi), Bido Lito!, Radio Exotica and Anti-Social Jazz Club.
Paul Seiffert, curator of the Craft Beer Expo said: “This is the sixth year of the festival and we’ve purposely introduced the new format to keep things interesting, with festival guests now being able to get up close and personal with the actual people that brewed their beer.”
Win a bar tab
To celebrate the new-look Craft Beer Expo, the festival organisers will be giving the chance for you and your friends to win a hotel stay, and a £100 bar tab at this year’s festival.
Each ticket purchased online (using the code ‘comp18’ ) before July 20 will get 10% off the ticket price and will be entered into a draw, with the winner to be announced the following Monday. You can purchase tickets for the expo by clicking here.