Skip to main content

Beer Of The Festival

On Friday, three panels of judges went through two rounds of blind tasting to select the Beer Of The Festival for 2025 from a shortlist of sixteen beers prepared by our volunteers.

Two semi-finals whittled down the sixteen to six finalists.

And the judges determined that the Beer Of The Festival 2025 is…..

Bank Top Brewery – Dark Mild

Runner up was Torrside – Beowulf

Third place was Brightside – Darkside

CBCF25 needs you….

Chorlton Beer & Cider Festival is organised and staffed by volunteers.

Volunteers at CBCF

Some give their time and skills for months in advance of the festival making preparations, some help out with set up and take down and some may only give a few hours selling tokens, working behind one of the bars or helping out with other important jobs across the site. They do it because they love independent beer and cider and want to encourage others to enjoy these too; they do it to support the valuable work St Clements does to provide community facilities to the people of Chorlton; they do it because it can be great fun working with like minded people.

All our volunteers are invaluable – the festival simply wouldn’t happen without them. And you can be one of them. Volunteering for Chorlton Beer & Cider Festival is now open.

CBCF Set Up Crew
CBCF Set Up Crew

Set up runs from Sunday 29th June to mid-afternoon on Thursday 3rd July. We’re open and serving beer, cider and gin from 3rd – 5th. And take down begins immediate after closing at 9pm on Saturday 5th (so we can return St Clements Church Hall to it’s “day job” ready for Sunday morning.

Welcome our Festival Partners

We are pleased to confirm the first two festival partners for 2025.

We couldn’t be happier that our lead festival partner is a brewery who are joining our little event in celebrating its 20th year in 2025.

Thornbridge Brewery‘s journey began in early 2005 in the small Stonemasons Workshop at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire. Their flagship beer, the iconic Jaipur IPA, was featured at the second Chorlton Beer Festival and has been a favourite every time it’s been featured. Over the years, they’ve brewed hundreds of beers, from crisp lagers to complex barrel-aged sours, even being able to utilise their own Burton Union set at their state of the art Riverside Brewery in Bakewell. Of course you’ll be able to enjoy Jaipur and many other Thornbridge beers at #CBCF25.

We are also pleased to welcome on board an independent brewery with an even longer history as our website partner.

Abbeydale Brewery was founded in 1996 and has been employee owned since 2024. They blend creativity and innovation with heritage and tradition, with much loved beers such as Deception and Moonshine sitting alongside modern beers packed with flavour and creativity from the Brewers Emporium and some incredible mixed fermentation specials from The Funk Dungeon.