Final preparations are underway for the Lichfield Arts Beer Festival.
The event will take place on Friday and Saturday (10th and 11th November) at Lichfield Guildhall.
It will feature more than 30 real ales and ciders from local and regional breweries, along with food and soft drinks.
Live music will also be on offer on the Saturday evening.
Entry on Friday is £2, while admission on Saturday is £2 before 6pm and 3pm afterwards.
For more details visit the Lichfield Arts website.
In light of the governments recent announcement about smoking it’s strange that the same view isn’t taken about alcohol which seems to be sociably more acceptable when in fact causes more problems in society than smoking ever did/does. When did you hear of someone being killed on the road by a driver smoking too much or being banned from driving for smoking to much (weed aside)? How about victims of domestic violence who have been attacked by their partner because they’d had one to many or drunken fights outside pubs, these incidents don’t happen because of smoking. The list is endless. In 2003, a ban on tobacco promotion came into effect in the UK, that stopped tobacco marketing through print & broadcast media, billboards, the internet, direct mail, product placement, promotions, free gifts, coupons and sponsorships and yet the same does not apply to alcohol. Yet here we are celebrating it with a festival by The Arts Council, not their remit. Alcohol is not art….is it?
Tobacco kills about twice as many people as alcohol worldwide, and more than 10 times as many in high-income countries. While drinking can be a threat to your health, smoking is certainly worse. Unlike alcohol at low or moderate levels, there is no benefit to tobacco use at any level.
A news story about a local beer festival is a wonky soapbox to stand on about the debate. These type of events celebrate artisan breweries, mostly local, who are continuing the ancient art of combining water, hops and yeast to create a drink with infinite flavour profiles and alcohol levels. Direct your energies to the multibillion dollar, global industries that create tobacco products, cheap vodka and lager on an industrial scale than these guys.
While you may be free to express your personal opinions, please let me explain some points. Firstly the Beer Festival is not as far as I’m aware sponsored by the Arts Council, it is in fact a Lichfield and District Arts Association event (LDAA). The event has been running for some years excepting a covid break. In past years all profit made is ploughed back into other LDAA events, including those which you may consider more artistic. The aim of a beer festival is to enjoy reasonable amounts of locally produced beers and ciders, and beers from other areas which are rare and not normally available to Midlands drinkers. This is a festival which attracts responsible drinkers and has been trouble free since it’s inception.
Just TheFactsMam and Curborough Rd Resident, you both seem to have missed the point. However, Curborough Rd Resident, you are quite right that it’s not the Arts Council but LDAA, my mistake.