First Norwich City of Ale meeting held for this year’s event

Preparations for the third City of Ale festival in Norwich have kicked off with the first meeting held to discuss the 2013 event.

The festival of beer, from May 23 to June 2, will again celebrate all that is good about local pubs serving local beers made from local ingredients.

And it will hope to build on the success of the previous two events, which have helped establish Norwich as the UK's City of Ale. Thirty-five breweries and 45 pubs took part in last year's event and there were 240 beers on offer.

City publicans, members of the Campaign for Real Ale and brewers were among those attending the first 2013 meeting at the Murderers in Timberhill in the city centre earlier this week. Following a review of last year's festival, co-chairman of the 2013 event, Dawn Leeder said this year's website would be updated as soon as the new lists were compiled.

This year's City of Ale will follow Camra's national AGM, which is being held in the city on the weekend of April 20. Graham Freeman, chairman of the Norwich and Norfolk branch of Camra, said 800 delegates had already pre-registered for the event, a record, and his branch would be arranging various brewery trips.

The City of Ale festival fits in with the Evening News' Love your Local campaign, which aims to get people back into pubs.

To see more stories from the campaign visit www.eveningnews 24.co.uk/loveyourlocal

The next City of Ale meeting will be at 10am on Monday, February 25, at the Red Lion in Bishopgate.