Charity beer fest Craft Beer Cares is back

Last year's festival

There's a bunch of beery things coming up in London over the next few weeks, but the one I think I'm looking forward to most is Craft Beer Cares – I've already bought my ticket. This beer festival run for charity was a really good event last year – excellent beer, all donated by the brewers, plus side-events such as a beer raffle with great prizes.

This year's edition takes place at London Fields Brewery in Hackney – or rather, at the brewery's event space around the corner on Mentmore Place E8. They're expecting beer from more than 20 breweries, and proceeds from the event (which raised more than £6000 last year) will be donated to London-based anti violence charity Art Against Knives.

“We have the fortune to be able to build on our first event with a bigger venue, more beer, and more sessions, to be more accessible and hopefully raise even more money for charity this year,” said Gautam Bhatnagar, the event's founder. “We couldn’t do it without the kindness and donations of the breweries involved, the volunteers and the logistical help of many distributors in the industry.”

Craft Beer Cares will run three sessions, from 11am-5pm and 6pm-12am on Saturday 29th, and 12pm-6pm on Sunday 30th. Tickets are £12.50 per session, which includes a festival glass and tokens for four half-pints – you can of course buy more tokens on site.

The breweries due to take part in Craft Beer Cares 2018 include:
Beavertown
Brew By Numbers
Brooklyn
Canopy
Cloudwater
Dry and Bitter
Fourpure
Gipsy Hill
Kernel
London Fields
Magic Rock
Modern Times
Northern Monk
NZ Beer Collective
Partizan
Siren
Thornbridge
Weird Beard
Wylam
Yeastie Boys

There's more to be confirmed, say the organisers. Based on last year's event, we can expect maybe eight or ten beers to be available on draught at any one time, plus others in bottle or can, and new kegs coming on tap as others run out.

Tickets for Craft Beer Cares are available via Eventbrite.