Beer festival says cheers to 50 years

Thousands are expected at the Cambridge Beer Festival this week

About 40,000 people are expected to say "cheers" as a popular city beer festival celebrates its 50th anniversary year.

The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) Cambridge Beer Festival raised its first glass in 1974 and, barring coronavirus lockdown cancellations, has been a mainstay for real ale fans ever since.

This year's event takes place on Jesus Green in the city from 20 to 25 May and features more than 200 British real ales from about 100 breweries as well as ciders, perries, mead and wine.

Organisers said if the weather did not play ball, there was more than enough indoor tented areas to accommodate all visitors.

To mark the 50th anniversary year, new designs have been created for the collectible beer glasses.

Clare Kenward, a member of the festival site team, said one design featured people looking back though their collection of glasses over the years, and the other was "a retro one looking back at our 40th year".

Cambridge Beer Festival attracts the crowds each year

Bert Kenward, deputy organiser, said there was much for beer fans - and others - to look forward to.

"All the beers we have will be from breweries that are very good," he said.

"We tend to buy quite a lot of beer from our local providers - quite a lot from East Anglia but quite a lot from the rest of the country - so there's a bias towards the local ones, but it's not solely local."

Until the late 1980s the event was always held indoors, but has since moved to various outdoor venues, "and in 2001 we moved to Jesus Green, and we've been here ever since", said Mr Kenward.

New designs for this year are expected to be a hit with festival collectors

Bert and Clare Kenward are stalwarts of the festival's organisation team

His wife Clare has been busy with the finer details of the festival.

Some team members, including security staff, remain on site 24 hours per day, so she had been busy last week dealing with plumbing for toilets, sinks and showers, and it is a busy job.

"Jesus Green is our life for the three weeks we're putting it up and taking it down again," she said.

The festival supports a charity every year, and this year it is Cambridge Women’s Resources Centre, a community charity dedicated to empowering, educating and encouraging women seeking positive change for themselves and their families.