Beer exhibition · London
Great British Beer Festival
CAMRA’s national beer exhibition, home of the Champion Beer of Britain award, and the model most British beer festivals are built on. It is currently on hiatus.
CAMRA’s own page for the festival states that it is taking a break, and gives no forthcoming dates. BeerHQ therefore records it as on hiatus rather than running, and does not imply a future edition.
Why it started
The Campaign for Real Ale had been running beer exhibitions since the mid-1970s — the Covent Garden event of 1975 is the usual landmark — and the first festival under the Great British Beer Festival name followed at Alexandra Palace in 1977.
What it is
The format GBBF established is now so standard in Britain that it reads as the natural way to hold a beer festival, and it was invented: casks stillaged along a wall, sold by the third, half and pint, staffed by volunteers, with a programme of judging running alongside. Hundreds of local CAMRA festivals copy it directly.
Its central institution is the Champion Beer of Britain, judged blind and announced at the festival. Winning it measurably changes a small brewery’s year, which makes GBBF one of the few beer competitions with a real commercial consequence attached.
It also carried an argument. CAMRA formed in 1971 against the replacement of cask beer with keg, and the festival was the campaign made visible — a room where the thing being defended could be tasted at scale. Later editions broadened to include keg, craft and imported beer, which was itself a significant shift in the organisation’s position.
As at the date this was last checked, CAMRA’s own page says the festival is taking a break and gives no dates. BeerHQ records that rather than describing it in the present tense.
What happens
Champion Beer of Britain
A blind-judged national award announced at the festival, decided over regional heats through the year. It is among the most consequential beer competitions in Britain because a win visibly moves a small brewery’s trade.
Volunteer bars and gravity stillage
Casks are stillaged in racks along the hall and served by gravity or hand pump by unpaid CAMRA volunteers. It is a working demonstration of cellar practice as much as a bar, and the model almost every British beer festival now follows. How the custom works.
What is poured
- Ordinary bitter
The everyday British cask ale: low in strength, gently bitter, and built to be drunk in pints over a whole evening.
- Best bitter
A step up from ordinary bitter in strength and depth, with more malt body while staying firmly sessionable.
- Dark mild
A low-strength dark British ale, gently sweet and nutty, built for drinking in quantity after physical work.
What is eaten
- British pub food and cheese counters rather than a festival cuisine — the food is deliberately incidental, which is itself a contrast with Munich.
How it has changed
Festivals are usually much less continuous than they are described as being, and the discontinuities are part of the record rather than a footnote to it.
- It moved venue repeatedly — Alexandra Palace, Brighton, Leeds, Earls Court, Olympia — which is why its identity attached to CAMRA rather than to a place, unlike Oktoberfest.
- The range widened well beyond cask: later editions carried keg, craft and a substantial international bar, softening the original campaigning line considerably.
- It is currently suspended, which CAMRA states on its own site without giving a resumption date.
What people get wrong
The Great British Beer Festival is the oldest beer festival in Britain.
CAMRA ran beer exhibitions before it, and the Covent Garden event of 1975 is usually treated as the landmark that established the modern British format. The first festival under the GBBF name was 1977.
It happens every August.
It did for decades. As at August 2026 CAMRA’s own page says the festival is taking a break, with no dates announced.
Questions
Is the Great British Beer Festival still running?
Not at present. CAMRA’s own page for the festival says it is taking a break and gives no forthcoming dates, as at August 2026. CAMRA’s many regional and local beer festivals continue independently of it.
What is the Champion Beer of Britain?
CAMRA’s national beer award, judged blind through regional heats and announced at the Great British Beer Festival. It is one of the few beer competitions whose result has a visible commercial effect on the winning brewery.
Connected
The place: London in United Kingdom.
Where it happens: The British pub
Brewing traditions: British cask ale
Last reviewed 2026-08-29. Status checked 2026-08-29.
Evidence
What BeerHQ knows about this, and how. Every statement carries the state of the evidence behind it rather than being presented flatly as fact.
As at August 2026 the Great British Beer Festival is not running: CAMRA’s own page for the festival states that it is taking a break and gives no forthcoming dates.
Backed by a source Last checked 2026-08-16.
Source: CAMRA, Great British Beer Festival, status statement on the GBBF page