Manchester Beer & Cider Festival 2014

Advance notice of the replacement for the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester next January.

When CAMRA decided that it was time that the National Winter Ales Festival's nine-year tenure in Manchester came to an end, there was some degree of outcry both from those volunteers who had pulled the festival together for many years and from the drinkers who had enjoyed the annual January festival.

Nine months on from the final event in Manchester, that decision by CAMRA may well have been the best thing that every happened for festival goers in the region - without it, the Manchester Beer & Cider Festival would never have been conceived. The new festival takes the same slot in the January calendar (22 to 25 January) and is shaping up to be Manchester's biggest and best ever beer festival. The biggest coup for the organisers was securing the amazing setting of Manchester Velodrome for the event - not the adjacent café used for the small warm up event in August - the actual Velodrome itself. As a building, it's simply stunning to stand inside that track and marvel at the scale of the place - and that's without any beer in it.

Set on the floor inside that steeply banked track will be the largest range of beers and ciders ever offered in Manchester. There will be well over 300 cask conditioned craft beers alongside a bar full of real ale in a bottle (drink in or take away) - every beer that is ready for sale will be available from the first session until it is sold. The cider and perry bar is expected to offer at least 75 different ciders and perries - all made from fresh apple or pear juice.

If the best of British beers isn't enough, then the 'Bière sans Frontières' bar will be importing the very best beers brewed for Germany's Oktoberfest alongside Belgian, Dutch, Czech and American beers - far too many to mention. Some of the most cutting edge breweries in the country including Marble Beers, Hawkshead, Liverpool Organic and Ilkley Brewery will be hosting their own bars offering a larger range of their beers than the three main cask bars can accommodate plus offering the chance to meet their brewers.

In total there will be no fewer than 16 bars to visit. Surrounding these are some 1700 seats from where visitors will be able to look over the festival floor and watch cyclists riding the track. The Great Britain Cycling Team have training sessions on the track twice a day which will continue throughout the festival alongside other clubs and taster sessions.

The festival kicks off at 4.30pm on Wednesday 22 January and runs through until Saturday evening. The Velodrome is easily accessible via Manchester's Metrolink tram network - its own Velopark station is served by trams every 12 minutes - with the 216 and other bus routes from Manchester even more frequent. CAMRA Members will be entitled to free entry all day Wednesday and Thursday with discounts on entry at all other times.

To find out more, visit the festival website, and for all the latest news follow the festival on Facebook or (if you must) on twitter on @mancbeerfest .

Keeping your cool

They'll be in that pub for
a cool pint afterwards!

Many years ago, John Major waxed lyrical in a speech aimed squarely at American perceptions of England about cricket, wayside inns and warm beer. It transpired that his idea of a wayside inn was a Little Chef, which - until revelations about Edwina Currie emerged - was about as exciting as you can imagine his life could get. However, it was the phrase "warm beer" that irritated me. Temperature is important for food and drink: a plate of cold egg and chips washed down with a cold cup of tea would not have you salivating with anticipation. Alcoholic drinks have their optimum temperature too: white wine should be chilled, and in these weather conditions, it makes sense to put your red wine in the fridge for half an hour or so, as rooms are currently a lot warmer than room temperature. Red wine should actually be served at cellar temperature, but most of us don't have cellars. Another drink that should be at cellar temperature is real ale, which is best served at 12 to 14 C (54 to 57 F). Lagers and smooth have to be served cold to prevent you tasting them, but the correct word to describe the right temperature for real ale is "cool". 

If real ale is too warm, it loses its natural conditioning and is flat and tasteless; some people describe that state as "flabby". If it's too cold, you won't get the subtle flavours; the taste is merely an unsophisticated approximation of what it should be. If I had to choose, I'd prefer too cold because the beer will in time warm up in the glass to the correct temperature. In such situations, I've occasionally bought my next pint well before I've finished the first in the hope that it will be just right by the time I get round to it.

What I don't like is beer that is too warm. It feels wrong in the mouth, in the way a cold cup of coffee would, and its taste is out of balance with astringent flavours more to the fore. In short, it's not particularly nice. With modern cooling techniques, there really isn't any excuse for beer that is too warm, so how come we still sometimes get served it? I suppose the obvious reason is the failure of pub owners to invest in equipment. Pubcos are the worst because they have a ludicrous business that is based on enormous debt, and they begrudge spending a penny more than they absolutely have to. In extreme cases, they'd prefer to let a pub decline than invest in it, and then get a bonanza when they sell it for redevelopment.

I regard £3 a pint as dear, the result of greed by both pubcos and Chancellor, but it's either pay that or not drink real ale in a pub. Drinking beer at home has little attraction for me, because going to the pub is not a shopping trip - it's part of my social life. If I am to pay pub prices, I am less tolerant of imperfections, such as the wrong temperature, short measures, the beer being out of condition or, in extreme cases, actually off. I am surprised when I read on beer blogs stories in which an imperfect pint is left on the bar and the writer quietly walks out. Not much use whingeing about it afterwards on the internet, chaps.

The current heat wave is showing up those pubs that don't have satisfactory cellars or decent cooling equipment. Most real ale drinkers will have a fallback drink, such as lager, Guinness, cider or wine, but for me, all of these are unsatisfactory substitutes. If a pub can't serve decent pint, then I'd prefer not to spend my cash there. In this weather, I don't think you can beat a nice, cool, dry pint of real ale: it shouldn't be a lottery as to whether you get it.