The rise and rise of Norwich City of Ale

By Roger Protz

- Last updated on GMT

Norwich City of Ale festival takes place from 22 May - 1 June
Norwich City of Ale festival takes place from 22 May - 1 June

Related tags Pubs Norwich Beer

Roger Protz reports on how the organisers of a ground-breaking celebration of beer and pubs could inspire other cities to stage similar events.

The organisers of a ground-breaking festival of beer and pubs have been invited to Westminster next month to explain to MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group how they have achieved such astonishing success.

The visit will come at the end of the fourth successive event — Norwich City of Ale — which runs from 22 May to 1 June this year.

This event is a long way removed from the beer festivals pioneered by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). For a start, it’s not in one place — it’s a moveable feast. It takes place over 10 days, with a range of events in pubs throughout Norwich that will include ‘meet the brewer’ evenings, beer-and-food matching, talks and beer tastings, pub quizzes and a special FEM-ALE gathering designed to attract women drinkers.

Springboard

The people of Norwich will be kept well aware of the festival. It’s sponsored by the local paper, the Evening News​, and the sides of local buses carry banners promoting the event. If you arrive in Norwich by train, the first pub you see over the road — the Compleat Angler — is the springboard that points you to all the other pubs in the city supporting the festival.

The event is the brainchild of two people who share a great passion for beer and pubs. Dawn Leeder is a lecturer in IT at Cambridge University while Phil Cutter runs one of the city’s best-known pubs, the Gardeners Arms near the castle. It’s better known by its nickname of the Murderers — a grisly killing took place there in the 19th century.

Leeder, with her husband Howard, a chemical engineer, have a great passion for cask beer. They have built a database called Pint Picker​ that lists more than 13,000 beers with ABVs, flavour profiles and tasting notes.

In October 2010, Leeder fell into conversation with Cutter at the annual CAMRA Norwich Beer Festival, one of the longest-running fests in the country. They agreed that, while the event was a marvellous showcase for beer, Norwich didn’t do enough to promote its rich diversity of pubs, many of historic importance. The Adam & Eve, for example, dates from 1249 and was built at the same time as Norwich Cathedral.

Enthusiastic

When they discussed the embryonic idea for a festival based on pubs they met an enthusiastic response from publicans. Cutter, who hails from Ipswich — but he keeps very quiet about that in Norwich — has been in the pub business since the age of 15. While he thinks CAMRA-style beer festivals are fine, he says the best place to drink beer is in pubs and he has held regular festivals at the Murderers for several years.

Norwich City of Ale developed out of his experience — and it grew at a fast pace. The first one was held in May 2011, with 40 pubs and 30 breweries backing the event. The third event last year featured 229 beers, backed by 133 events in pubs. This year 43 pubs and 40 breweries are on board.

A special 5% ABV IPA, called Tidal Gold, has been brewed by Norfolk Brewhouse for the event and will help raise money for the victims of the winter’s devastating floods in Norfolk.

Leeder, who has taken a keen interest in ale since 2005, stresses the important role of pubs and brewing in Norfolk’s history. She points out that barley has been grown in the county for some 2,000 years and is far and away the most important grain-growing region for brewing in the country.

Launchpad

There are now some 34 breweries in Norfolk and the county has recovered from the dog days of the 1960s and ’70s when two giant London brewers, Watney and Whitbread, bought and closed three breweries in Norwich and one in Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) and laid waste to scores of pubs at the same time.

Today Norwich has half a dozen breweries while Lacons, closed by Whitbread, re-opened in Yarmouth last year and will be a major sponsor of this year’s festival.

Norwich City of Ale is run solely by enthusiastic volunteers and is a non-profit event. It relies on sponsors, which include Norwich Business Improvement District. It has paid for full-page ads in 20 regional newsletters published by CAMRA. There’s no animosity between the event and the campaign; on the contrary, the local CAMRA branch welcomes the initiative and says the two festivals inspire one another.

And Norwich could soon be the launchpad for similar events in other cities.

Andrew Griffiths MP, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, will discuss with Leeder, Cutter and their colleagues how to spread the message. Leeder and Cutter have simple Biblical advice to other British cities that are also rich in brewing and pub history: “Go thou and do likewise.”

Check out the City of Ale website​ for further event details.

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