Southport Beer Street

Great news for Southport beer lovers: a beer festival in the heart of town. The Tap and Bottles micropub in Cambridge Walks is running its first ever beer festival. They are calling it Southport Beer Street because they will be extending the festival out of the pub and down along Cambridge Arcade. The Tap and Bottles has become a popular destination for beer drinkers in the couple of years that it has been been open to the extent that it is expanding into the premises next door. It was awarded the CAMRA Branch Pub of the Year (Merseyside) 2016 by the Southport and West Lancs Branch.

They are aiming to offer more than 75 different beers, including some from local breweries. There will be around 30 cask (or 'real') ales on, one each from some of their favourite breweries in the UK; the rest will be made up by the taps (or 'craft beers') pouring inside the pub and outside on the street.

There will be live acoustic music throughout the weekend and they are working on providing a couple of tasting events for “the real beer geeks out there”, to quote the organisers. Asked if it would be cold, they reply: “We're going to heat the arcade for the weekend. So after a couple of beers, it'll feel like the middle of summer.”

Admission to the festival is free. There is a £3 charge on your glass, which will be refunded if you decide you not to keep it. Beer Street runs from 25 to 27 November. Opening hours will be: 4.00 to 10.30 on Friday; midday to 10.30 on Saturday; midday to 7.00 on Sunday.

The Cambridge Arcade runs between Lord Street and Chapel Street in Southport town centre; the Lord Street entrance is next to the Atkinson arts venue. The buses on Lord Street and Southport railway station on Chapel Street are all just a few minutes' walk away. To find out more about Southport Beer Street, go to their website, where a beer list should be available soon.

This is part of a series of articles that I am writing for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter. Previous reviews are here.