This year’s Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival is set to take place in October and at a new venue – Outside @ The Corn Exchange.
Adhering to Scottish Government guidelines, organisers We Are Beer made the decision to move the festival from its original home at The Biscuit Factory to The Corn Exchange’s outside area to ensure a safe, socially distanced festival.
Taking place on 9 and 10 October, the festival hopes to bring the city together to celebrate the flourishing craft beer scene in Scotland with a strong focus on local beers: Fierce, Vault City, 71 Brewing, and new kid on the block, Newbarns.
Beers from some of the world’s most cutting-edge breweries will be shipped over by brewers unable to travel abroad – including Equilibrium (NYC).
A range of UK breweries will be showcasing their products at the festival, which celebrates the best beer in all its forms: from sour beers and IPAs to low ABV beers.
The organisers have been working hard to secure a venue that will allow them to put strict health and safety measures in place including increased PPE at service areas, updating queuing and directional signage for visitors, app-based registration to comply with track and trace, rigorous cleaning and sanitising throughout and in between sessions, increased entry and exit points as well as admittance by advance tickets only and no cash payments.
Festival founder Greg Wells, said: “Although we are sad not to be returning to the Biscuit Factory, we had to make the decision to move to a much bigger outdoor venue to make sure we could accommodate festival-goers while also adhering to social distancing guidelines.
"We have been working with Edinburgh Council to make sure that the festival ticks all the boxes when it comes to safety.”
Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival 2020 will also showcase some of Scotland’s top restaurants and street food vendors, including Harajuku Kitchen, who will be serving up authentic Japanese gyoza and Bross Bagels.
Greg continues: “It was really gut wrenching when we had to cancel the festival back in March but we are ecstatic to be able to go ahead with the festival and support all of the fantastic local breweries and food vendors.
"Although the festival we will a little different this year, it will still be a cracking weekend and something to look forward too.”
Tickets are priced from £46 and include entry, samples of beers from the breweries, a special festival beer glass, access to the festival’s pop-up kitchens and music acts.
More breweries and food vendors will be announced at a later date, and if for any reason a second lockdown is implemented and the festival is cancelled until 2021, tickets will automatically roll onto the 2021 or 2022 event.
Tickets are available to purchase online here.
