For our Thursday session, you will have a good chance of enjoying a beer in the company of the brewer who made it.

A chance discussion with the team from Kent’s Pig & Porter brewery ended up with them agreeing to time their next collaboration brew trip to Manchester to co-incide with the festival. With one of the country’s most exciting new breweries travelling all that way, we thought why not invite lots more of our favourite brewers down for the evening. We are thrilled that so many of the brewers thought it was a good idea too.

Representatives from these breweries are expected with many more invited and likely to attend:

Hawksheadlogo

Pig and PorterBrightside

Blackjack BeersBrewsmithCloudwateroffbeat2Thirst Class Ale

Quantum Brewing Company

Beer NouveauOtherton AlesFool Hardy AlesSix O'Clock Beer Company

Hawkshead Brewery (Cumbria), Pig & Porter (Kent), Beer Nouveau, Blackjack Beers, Brewsmith Beer, Cloudwater Brewery, Offbeat Brewery, Otherton Ales, Quantum, Six O’Clock Beer Co, Thirst Class Ales

It’s going to be a pretty free form evening with brewers popping down when they’ve finished their day. Some brewers will have samples of beers not awailable at the festival for you to try and samples of ingredients to compare. Others will just be be around to answer your questions and just have a general chat.

They have all promised to do their best to stay awake after a days brewing and should be on their best behaviour (unless you feed them beer in which case who knows what could happen).