Winter beer festival set for Peterborough in January

John Lawrence and Steve Williams, the experienced duo who run The Frothblowers micropub in Werrrington, are the driving force behind Soke Fest, the inaugural Peterborough Winter Beer Festival.

The event is set to take place at The Cresset, in Bretton, from January 21-23.

John, who also runs The Blue Bell in Werrington, said: “We haven’t had a real beer festival in Peterborough for a couple of years now (because of the pandemic). But, in any case, we do not want to compete with the summer one which is huge.

“Our first priority is to local breweries and we have about a dozen onboard already from Elgoods to Kingscliffe.

“It will be an opportunity for them to showcase what local breweries are doing and they keep the profits. It has been a rubbish 18 months and January is usually quiet so we think this will be a little bright spot, something to look forward to.”

John said they hoped to have 20-25 brewery bars in the main auditorium, a cider bar in the adjacent space and room for some acoustic entertainment in the foyer.

The Friday and Saturday will be split into two sessions - 12pm to 4pm and 6pm to 10pm - while Sunday will be 12pm to 4pm.

“We had decided to keep the sessions to four hours and will only be serving in half pints because we want to encourage people to try more beers than they might otherwise do,” he added.

Tickets are on sale now by visiting the website: www.cresset.co.uk.