Who is going?
2 danes and a local will be flying in to Machester wednesday and attend both days …
We are very excited. Lineup looks amazing . .
Cheers
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interesting, I thought the lineup looked pretty meh. There’s a few really good breweries there like Holy Goat and LEP, but I can get their beers in my local any day of the week without paying to get into a fest (and without paying £3 a third). There’s a hell of a lot of filler too, breweries I’d probably not cross the street for let alone travel to a fest. What I find really disappointing is the almost total lack of foreign breweries - I get that for the last couple of years it’s been difficult with Covid but this year there’s really no reason not to have International brewers.
I could honestly find more interesting beers just going round Manchester pubs and bars
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Myself, @cgarvieuk and @Stuu666 have tickets for the Friday early session, but the way the trains are at the moment from Edinburgh it’s looking ropey.
I’ve heard a few things which are making the 2022 version sound a lot less promising than previous years.
The organisers have supposedly told breweries that the maximum they will pay per keg is £108, a sustainability initiative apparently. They are supposedly charging most breweries £500 just to pour. Tokens are 10 for £25 and all beers are 1 token. Pours are one third of a pint. There’s a lot of £2.50 one third pours in a 30 litre key keg, quite a mark up in fact.
Hope it’s not just a bunch of 4.5% pale ales.
Still. the venue is amazing and it’ll be good to catch up with some folk that I’ve not seen since pre-pandemic, so I’ll make the best of it. I’ve got an all sessions ticket again. At least I can spend the tokens that I had left over from the 2019 festival.
There’ll be plenty of fringe events in the bars around Manchester.
Well it’s good they’re back to all beers one token again, that was a nasty shock when they doubled or tripled the price of some beers on opening day the other year. But for a supposedly premium beer event £108 a keg, especially if that’s for a 30l, is ridiculous, you’re not gonna get owt imperial or barrel aged for that
I’m a bit confused though, if they’re paying for the kegs then why would the brewery pay to pour? Usually if the brewery pays to pour they then get the bar price for the beer so the keg price doesn’t come into it (though 2.50 a third may still limit what they can afford to serve)
I’m going Thurs Eve. I agree the amount I end up spending is horrendous, considering the amount of beers I have.
If you wanted to put faces to names @Dedollewaitor I’ll be there 19:30 - 22:00 and hope to track down @Travlr too.
It’s a bit of a labyrinth inside, if you haven’t been before, will BM you.
Not sure of the intricacies of their model tbh, it sounds a bit complicated. Info is from brewery staff who will be pouring.at the festival.
when I poured at Birrasana they gave two options, so this may be similar…
1 they buy the kegs and provide accommodation, and the sales (or tokens) go to the organisers
2 you pay a pitch fee (i.e. the 500 quid) but keep all the bar takings (or tokens)
so it may be a mix of these i.e. brewers get 100 quid a keg or pay 500 quid up front but get 2.50 a third
Just perused the line up and unless I’m mistaken it seems to be only UK breweries featured this year. Is that correct? I quite liked it when there was a French area, think the Danish breweries have always been there too.
I am there one session friday and saturday.
We are also doing a day in Sheffield and a day riding “the cask train”.
2 sessions of new england IPA is okay with me but I look way more forward to a pint of mild or bitter.
Cheers
there’s two token overseas brewers (very good brewers but that’s not the point!) - their blurb claims this is cos they’re trying to be environmentally friendly, but as they only announced this a week or so before the event a cynical person might think this is an excuse after failing to procure any foreign brewers. Can’t say I’d be impressed if I’d paid nearly 20 quid expecting the likes of Omnipollo and Cascade and then finding an all local line-up
Ok I missed those two. Just scrolled through again and can’t help feeling a bit underwhelmed compared to previous years, when Jester King and the like were pouring away rare bottles, and the latest movers and shakers from the EU were represented.
I mean, there’s enough new breweries / beers for me to try but it just doesn’t warrant the entry fee. There are 20 taps from Deya and 16 taps from Duration, 17 taps from Siren, 15 taps from North, 10 from Cloudwater and many of the others have 7 - 8 lines each from UK - the brewery list could’ve easily been doubled! Plus the vast majority are breweries that regularly feature in any town or city craft bar or micropub.
I have access to around 4 good craft beer bars in my local area and could confidently access a good amount of the beers being served. I wouldn’t have got a ticket if it had turned into this. But hey, I’ll enjoy it for what it is and drink plenty of interesting beer so not all bad.
yes that sums up my feelings. Some of my favourite UK brewers are there like Holy Goat and LEP… but I get them regularly within a mile of my house, I don’t need to take an expensive train then pay best part of £20 for a ticket (and the queueueue!). And some of the breweries are distinctly c-list, good at what they do but not really what you expect from a premier craft fest (as was - TBH not any more). I’ll be interested to see what happens next year, certainly a lot of facey craft beer groups and fora are full of people offering tickets for sale and I know others who’ve said they’re not gonna bother even if they can’t shift their ticket
Plus there are train strikes on Sat - there’s a group of 12 I know locally where over half can’t physically make it, and can’t sell their tickets. IMBC clearly need to make some serious changes if they cannot get more than two EU breweries in attendance with a year of planning, and seems a bit of a piss-take having 15+ beers from a number of brewers.
they’re offering refunds up to 6pm today for people who can’t get there cos of the rail strikes. Or for people who now don’t want to go and use the strike as an excuse 
