Get ready for a weekend festival of beer

The Craft Beer Experience is coming to Edinburgh next month, from 15–17 November.

The Edinburgh Craft Beer Experience promises to be a truly immersive beer event, taking over all three floors of the Assembly Roxy on Roxburgh Place to bring you a taste of the very best beers from Scotland, the UK and Europe.

The Craft Beer Experience will run for five sessions over the three days with beers from over 20 breweries for visitors to taste, with some beers appearing in Scottish taps for the very first time.

This event isn’t just for the beer geeks though, it’s for everyone who’s ever enjoyed a cold one at the end of the day.
Scotland has a long history of brewing beer, and the Assembly’s Main Hall will be a celebration of that 5000 year tradition, with food and drink coming from some of Scotland’s best producers.

The majestic columns of the Main Hall will be interspersed with 13 craft breweries from Edinburgh’s doorstep and beyond.

From Edinburgh and Leith will be the unfiltered offerings of Pilot, and just beyond the bypass, braw seasonal stylings from Cross Borders in Dalkeith. Looking past the Lothians, 71 Brewing will be representing Dundee, with larger brewers Tempest and Six Degrees North also bringing bars.

Completing the line-up from Scotland will be Alechemy, Barneys, Brewtoon, Fallen, Stewart Brewing, Top Out and more.

Also in the Main Hall, to line the stomach, there will be a range of traditional and not so traditional nourishing Scottish fare; and representing the other side of Scotland’s drinking habit; Musselburgh based Hickory Bars will be serving cocktails from its Botanical Garden Bar, with a drinks list showcasing the very best of Scottish craft spirits and the country’s distilling credentials.

The Edinburgh Craft Beer Experience (Photo: Chris Watt)

Downstairs and in the venue’s atmospheric Snug Bar, the rest of Britain’s best breweries will be on show. From the North England will be Northern Monk and Magic Rock Brewery, with The Kernel and Camden Town Brewery representing London and the South.

Tiny Rebel will represent Wales, with Boundary flying the flag for Northern Ireland. London based Cidersmith’s Cider will also be available.

The seven breweries will make their own mark on the space, bringing classic pub games for entertainment including a pub quiz during each session. Behind the bar and Scottish drinkers will be able to taste beers they never have before, with brews making their way north of the border for the first time.

Next door to the Snug Bar in the Basement Theatres, drinkers will be able to enjoy a full programme of beer themed workshops and masterclasses.

Visitors will experience beer in a different way with tasting notes and food pairings; get to know the men and women behind the cask with meet the brewer sessions; and even start their own brewing journey with home brew masterclasses. Seating in these events will be limited, and on a first come first served basis so guests are encouraged to arrive early to avoid disappointment.

Travelling the stone staircase to the Upper Theatre will take you to two of Europe’s most prestigious brewing countries. Belgium will show off distinctive Lambic style breweries, pouring beers from Belgium’s oldest Lambic brewery, Timmermans; and Germany will bring the Zeitgeist Bar, pouring three traditional German brews, including Fruh, Uerige, and the distinctive smoked 15th century Schlenkerla. As with the Snug Bar downstairs, the brewers will be bringing their own Belgian touch to the Upstairs Theatre to complete the experience.

The Craft Beer Experience has been developed by one of the passionate team who created the Craft Beer Revolution in previous years.

The man behind the event, Richard Servranckx said: ‘Brewing has enjoyed a huge resurgence in recent years and it really has felt like a revolution, the dawning of a new era of beer. But we’re living in that craft era now, the revolution has done its job and it’s time to move on to the next stage, where we just get to drink the beer and enjoy the experience!’

Across the three day event brewers from Scotland will be put to the test in Edinburgh Craft Beer Experience’s ReplicAle contest; a tournament of taste where brewers must create their own beer using ingredients provided by Scottish Maltster Bairds Malt in a brilliant display of the versatility of the drink and its creators.

Beers will be judged in a blind tasting on flavour and aroma, and tested for its ABV and measured against the IBU scale, an international scale of bitterness in beer, to find the best balanced brew.

As well as some of the best beers from around the globe, the stone halls of the Assembly Roxy will be filled with the musical styling of local DJs, Two Guys, aka Ross Tolley and Craig West.

The Edinburgh Craft Beer Experience will run for five sessions between Thursday 15th and Saturday 17th November at Assembly Roxy, 2 Roxburgh Pl, Edinburgh EH8 9SU. Tickets include a specially designed schooner glass, a token towards your first beer, a full programme of events and brewers, as well as access to the demonstrations and masterclasses.

Open hours and ticket prices are: Thursday, 5.30-11pm, £12. Friday, noon-4.30pm, £8; 6-11pm, £14. Saturday, noon-5pm, 6-11pm, £14. Tickets are available from craftbeerexperience.co.uk.