All you need to know about the 31st East Anglian Beer and Cider Festival at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds

With the 31st East Anglian Beer and Cider Festival opening today, in St Edmundsbury Cathedral for the third year, here is everything you need to know about the highly-popular event.

Over the six-day festival in Bury St Edmunds, organised by West Suffolk and Borders Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) there will be more than 250 real ales and more than 50 ciders on offer within the nave and garth of the site.

The event will also have food stalls and two sound stages, one outside and one near the cathedral font, with an entertainment programme including the Honington Military Women’s Choir, Bury Folksesh, the Marrakesh Swing Band and Cockney Rovers and Kopy Katz during an 80s night.

The festival is staffed and run by around 200 volunteers, who will be undertaking a variety of tasks – from cellar work to selling tickets, serving at the bar to washing glasses.

This year the festival will be paying tribute to one of its own and have launched a beer in his memory, which will be available for drinkers to taste.

Mike Shave, who died in November last year, used to order all of the beer for the festival, last doing this in 2021, and was West Suffolk Camra’s webmaster.

The man from Thurston is having the festival’s showcase bar, in front of the church’s altar, dedicated to him with beers from some of his favourite breweries – Great Yarmouth’s Lacons Brewery, Colchester Brewery, Green Jack in Lowestoft and Oakham Ales in Peterborough.

As well as this there will be a ‘festivale’ called Honey Gold available, produced by Nethergate Brewery and containing honey from Mike’s bees – as he was an avid beekeeper.

Another of the site’s bars inside the cathedral, the ‘Strong Bar’, is dedicated to Camra member John Stemp, who also died recently.

In the marquee, bars will include the festival’s ‘supermarket shelf’ with beers you can find in the shops, the ‘East Anglian’ with drinks from the region, the ‘National’ with a salute to some tipples outside of East Anglia and a ‘crafty corner’.

As a festival first, beside its gins, Pimms and Presecco bar, there is a ‘World Beer Bar’ – with pumps and kegs from the likes of Germany and Belgium from town bar Vespers in St Andrew's Street South.

As well as also having a pair of cider bars, there is a separate gluten-free beer bar, even having fresh glasses on the bar.

Advance tickets can still be purchased from the festival’s website, but admission on the days up to 4pm are free except for Saturday which is £15 all day, Wednesday and Thursday after 4pm is £8, Friday is £15 and Sunday and Monday is free.

For Camra members, admission is half-price and once they have paid once they can come in for the rest of the festival for free.

Souvenir glasses for the 31st years are on sale and the event is dog-friendly, allowing dogs throughout the site.

The festival has raised more than £150,000 for local charities since it began and in 2022 it donated more than £13,000 to a number of good cause was donated to local good causes, with the festival as a whole having donated more than £150,000 since the festival began.