It was a time pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine war, pre-Liverpool winning the Premier League. It was also a time when you could get a decent beer in Belfast for well under £7. That time was 2018 and that’s when the last Belfast Beer and Cider festival took place – until now. For reasons we won’t go into here, there’s been no such CAMRA NI-organised festival since 2018 and it was great to see it returning, now at Banana Block, opposite Boundary Brewing on the Newtownards Road.
A quirky, funky space – the new venue is already the permanent home of burger and bagel spots, a record shop and more – and for three days in early November it was a place to find 120 casks, kegs and cider boxes. I heard Banana Block was suggested to CAMRA by the late Charles Ballantyne of Ards Brewing and it was fitting the bar was named after him following his death earlier this year. No doubt he would have approved of the impressive set up.
That set up comprised of over 60 casks, a traditional British-style beer vessel rarely found in Northern Ireland, 50 keykegs and over 10 boxes of cider. If you’re unfamiliar with the difference between a cask and keykeg, you’ll get all the details at the festival website here.
A learning corner was erected between the entrance point and the main bar – it was a space where you could be educated about those different vessels, as well as meet some of the brewers who were pouring free tasters of their beer – brewers from Belfast-based Bullhouse and Out of Office as well as Brehon in County Monaghan. Or if apples are more your thing you were treated to being served by Davy from Tempted at the cider bar.
But the beer list came from far and wide across the four corners of the UK and Ireland. Antrim to Donegal to Sligo to Longford to Dublin to Cheshire to South Wales to Cornwall to London to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Orkney Islands. Is that widespread enough for you?
A swarm of volunteers were on hand to pour the beers and provide accompanying advice about styles and breweries – if it was asked for. These volunteers were incredible, especially on Friday and Saturday when the venue was packed full to capacity and the queue to the bar was three or four deep. Thank you to everyone who gave their time to help serve at the bar, thank you to everyone who gave their time to help with set up and take down on the days before and after the festival, thank you to the organisers who gave their time to source a venue, create a beer list and deal with everything that’s involved in the organisation of such a festival. But most of all, thank you to every single one of you who bought a ticket and came down to have a beer or three. You – the much appreciated, appreciators of quality, independent beer – are the most important factor. If there was no appetite for a Belfast Beer Festival, it simply would not exist. The reason such an event happens is because people want it to happen. The drinkers of Belfast and Northern Ireland made the festival a success. Further afield too, I know of good folk who travelled from Athlone, Donegal, Dublin, Liverpool, London, Glasgow and even Amsterdam and they fully enjoyed what they experienced in Banana Block.
How could you not love what happened? Regardless of your tastes – whether you had a penchant for a sweet cider, ginger beer, black lager, double IPA, coffee stout, saison or maybe just a simple and satisfying pale ale – you were sure to find something that made you raise an eyebrow and smile to the person next to you. For what it’s worth I absolutely adored Kinnegar’s 4% ABV ginger beer – Jackrabbit – and Otterbank’s 7.1% ABV barrel aged sour red ale – Hello Sibling. There’s magic happening over in Donegal y’know!
There’s also something special occurring across the wider beer scene in Northern Ireland. The festival proved, as if we needed reminding, that more people are embracing independent beer and seeking a better range of styles. The festival didn’t sell Guinness, Carlsberg, Harp, Madri or Tennent’s. It didn’t have what NI hospitality chiefs are telling others is our “taste profile”, yet the place was rammed.
Beer consumers in Northern Ireland demand to be offered a better and wider choice of high quality, locally brewed beer in our pubs and restaurants. This slow march is picking up pace, change is happening and the Belfast Beer and Cider Festival of 2024 mattered much more than you realise.
