Work begins to turn Cannock theatre into Real Ale venue for festival

The ninth Cannock Beer Festival will bring lovers of ales, stouts, ciders and many other drinks to the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock for three days of drinks and friendship between Thursday and Saturday.

Kegs were being opened and stands set up inside the theatre by members of the Cannock CAMRA branch as they prepared to put on a festival which has grown in popularity since the first in 2016.

Chris Southall, who is one of the organisers, said the theatre felt like a second home to the volunteers and spoke about what people could expect when they arrived at the festival.

He said: "We've done every festival here and the people here make us feel so welcome and we have the run of the place for the week.

"People have said to us that this is one of the smaller festivals and one of the better ones as the staff are always friendly and knowledgeable and people say they really enjoy coming here.

"It’s very much the same as we’ve always had the Prince of Wales Theatre, which meant the amount of space we’ve had has never changed, and we found that the first one was very successful, so we’ve not really needed to make many changes from the first one.

“What people can expect is 45 ales, 15 ciders and five keykeg beers, which is a new idea we tried out last year and which went down well, so we’re repeating that this year."

Mr Southall said that the headline beers that people should try included one from Mason's Brewery in Truro, which he said was a new brewery and was a beer not many people had tried before.

He said that he expected around 200 people per day to come to the festival and said everyone was excited about the days to come.

He said: "Friday and Saturday will be the busiest days, but we get a lot of people on Thursdays who are known in the Real Ale circles as Tickers, as they'll come along and tick off all the beers that they've never tried before.

"We expect it to be really busy on Friday and Saturday, so we might not get to drink much of the beer ourselves, but we do get to do a bit of quality control beforehand, so it's going to be a good weekend for all involved."

To find out more about the event and the beers on offer, go to cannockbeerfestival.co.uk