London Beer Festival Roundup: May 2014

Dave Haste
By Dave Haste Last edited 118 months ago
London Beer Festival Roundup: May 2014

dukeADuke of Edingurgh Ale Weekend

London is blessed with many beer festivals this month. So many, in fact, that we need to list them in a more concise format than usual. Click through to the individual websites for more details on times, tickets and suchlike, and as always let us know in the comments if we’ve missed anything.

Starting in the next couple of days...

Kicking off today (1 May) and lasting until Saturday is CAMRA’s Kidbrooke Beer and Cider Festival, taking place in Charlton Park Rugby club. The festival promises more than 50 real ales, from South East London and elsewhere in the UK, as well as almost two dozen ciders and perries. On a slightly smaller scale, starting 2 May and running for the whole bank holiday weekend, are the Windsor Castle Beer Festival (Carshalton) and the Duke of Edinburgh Ale Weekend (Brixton), both of which feature a great line up of beers.

Starting next week...

From Wednesday 7 to Sunday 11 May, the St Margaret’s pub in Twickenham will be hosting a Traditional Ale and Craft Lager Festival, with beers from five London brewers (and others less local) as well as food, a quiz, live music and other entertainment. Meanwhile, from the Friday to the Sunday of that week, the beer festival at the Forester in Ealing focuses on UK ales and ciders, and also offers live music and a quiz, with a variety of food options (a hog roast, a barbecue and a carvery). If you’re looking for a third beery option, the British Craft Beer Challenge returns for 2014 with its first round staging a battle between beers from the North and the South of the country, on Saturday 10 May in the London Fields Brewery’s Brewhouse venue.

Starting in the week of Monday 12 May...

From Thursday 15 to Saturday 17 May, two separate CAMRA beer festivals will be taking place more-or-less simultaneously. The 15th Kingston Beer and Cider Festival and the 9th Bexley Beer Festival both offer a wider range of beers and ciders than could realistically be sampled in a single session, so take your pick.

Starting in the week of Monday 19 May...

Another bank holiday weekend brings another handful of promising-looking opportunities for drinking beer. From Friday 23 to Monday 26 May, the Isle of Dogs's excellent Gun gastropub will be hosting their Spring Haze Beer Festival. Here the ‘haze’ refers to natural and unfined beers, so don’t complain about your pint if it’s not crystal clear. Over the same dates, the beer festival at Isleworth’s Red Lion features more than 50 real ales, ciders and perries, and live music on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Finally, the Brewfest Spring 2014 event runs from the Saturday to the Monday in Meantime’s Old Brewery venue at Greenwich, with an impressive 150 beers from 40 different brewers. You’ll need to buy a ticket for this (£20 plus booking fee per day, in advance), which includes tokens for six one-third measures of beer.

Starting in the final week of May...

There are not really any notable beer festivals kicking off in the final week of May (although all of the events that we mentioned for the previous week continue until the spring bank holiday Monday), but watch this space for our June round-up.

If you’re a lover of beer or pubs, why not buy the Londonist book of London pub crawls for less than the price of a pint.

Last Updated 01 May 2014