2024: A Festival Season Roundup

March to September spells a really busy festival season for North every year. These festivals range far and wide from attending the final ever Haze Wave beer festival in Helsinki, to the annual pilgrimage down the M1 to London Craft Beer Festival, to a new event hosted by friends at Vaux Brewery up in Sunderland.

Festivals present the perfect opportunity to showcase our freshest brews to discerning drinkers, build relationships within the brewing industry to help secure the future of craft beer, and introduce ourselves to new markets we may previously not have had great exposure to. Each event we attend has a unique charm and requires a slightly different approach, whether it is brewery led or a sales opportunity, but each is as enjoyable as the last.

Some particular highlights are below:

Little Summer Beer Bash – Having attended previous years we knew this festival was a must-do when the invitation arrived. A brewery led event co-created by Left Handed Giant, Verdant and this year’s host DEYA, Nadia & Seb from our brewery team and James from Marketing headed down to Cheltenham to pour some of North’s Triple Summer Launch beers (TFG Mango + Pineapple + Lime, Futura) and the collaboration brew with this year’s event sponsor Loughran’s Select.

We were treated to fantastic hospitality by DEYA who provided a unique tour around some of the Black Country’s finest beery establishments which helped found and now support the local brewing scene. The following day over 20 breweries from all across the UK (and a few from further afield) served visitors over 2 sessions accompanied by DJs, a live saxophonist and stilt walkers.

This was a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends and sample some of the newest beer from the most exciting breweries in the UK at the moment including Beak, Floc and Rivington. There was great interest in our summer beers and the TFG flew out! A massive thank you to DEYA for hosting us this year and to all three co-hosts for the invitation; we can’t wait for LSBB 25!

Leeds International Beer Festival – Back for its 12^th year and its 4^th year at the iconic Kirkstall Abbey site, LIBF 24 was bigger and better than ever! This year we had our own little slice of North located in an exclusive tipi allowing us to bring the party atmosphere! Alongside karaoke and a bespoke cocktail menu for the event, we showcased 13 beers over the 5 sessions including old favourites such as Atlantis and Sputnik, as well as 3 of our newest releases in TFG Blueberry, Blackberry + Redcurrant, North x Prizm, and North x Parrotdog.

Leeds is at the heart of everything we are at North and it was such a privilege to be able to attend LIBF again this year to connect with our local customers, and provide something a little different to some of the other festivals we attend. A big thank you to everyone who came to see us and try some of our latest and greatest, especially the beer club members who made themselves known!

DOZO Festival – This one was something a little different. Earlier in 2024 we collaborated with a Polish brewery in the form of Ziemia Obiecana to produce an amazing 6.4% Hazy IPA which featured in the May Beer Club box. Brewery founder Łukasz was then keen to invite us to his DOZO Festival held in the lovely city of Łódź in Poland. This was a huge honour and one which we gladly accepted!

James (or Refold to those in the know) carried the North flag over for us and was treated a brilliant weekend sampling some of the finest Polish hospitality. DOZO is unique in that the brewers in attendance are there to represent their brand, but the beer is served by the ZO staff leaving more time for networking and socialising. As well as having the opportunity to introduce the Polish crowd to some North cask ale (Seasons Reverse), we also took along Springwell Pils, Ultraphase and North x Prizm at the request of Łukasz.

Once again we cannot thank Łukasz and the whole Ziemia Obiecana team for their invitation and hospitality, and what an incredible event they put on. It was excellent also to catch up with our friends at Zichovec and Puhaste who we will be seeing again at Dark & Wild Festival later this year. Watch this space…

Here is a full list of the festivals we have been fortunate enough to attend this year:

Northern Restaurant & Bar Show – Manchester

Hop City – Leeds

Zurich Beer Festival – Zurich, Switzerland

Craft Beer Expo – Liverpool

Nottingham Craft Beer Festival

DGB Invitational Festival – Sandnes, Norway

Manchester Craft Beer Festival

Sunderland Craft Beer Festival

Haze Wave Festival – Helsinki, Finland

Little Summer Beer Bash – Cheltenham

London Craft Beer Festival

DOZO Fest – Łódź, Poland

Leeds International Beer Festival

Putoja Festivalis – Vilnius, Lithuania

Full Circle Beer Festival – Newcastle

Hush Festival (November) – Northwich

2024 has been an incredible year for festivals, some of which could not have come at a better time as North moves into its latest phase of operations. We have lots planned for 2025 and attendance at festivals and events is a significant part of this. We’re incredibly grateful to have been invited to the events we have this year and can’t wait to get to more in 2025. If you see us pouring at a festival near you, please come on over to say “hi”, we’d love to see you!