A three-day canalside beer festival is coming to Manchester this weekend
Kicking off this Friday, find a range of bars dedicated to hoppy, session, fruit and sour beers, plus wine, cocktails and.food from Beeswing, Madre, Pollen and Great North Pie Co.
A three-day canalside beer festival is coming to Manchester this weekend, bringing together some of the UK’s (and the world’s) best breweries.
Taking place at the waterside neighbourhood Kampus, Summer Beer Thing – the summer counterpart to Manchester’s Indy Man Beer Con festival – will kick off this Friday from 4pm, with a DJ in the garden from 5pm.
2022’s event will bring together a brand new line-up of breweries and food traders including soon-to-be Kampus residents Madre and Great North Pie Co.
Elsewhere, there’ll be more food from the likes of newcomer Pollen, as well as Nells’ pizza and Levanter.
Beer lovers can expect to find a range of different beer styles on offer from various brewers, as well as a range of different street foods – from sandwiches and pastries to tacos, pies and giant pizza slices.
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This year’s event also features a wine bar from Beeswing, cocktails in collaboration with Campari, and a range of interesting and creative non-alcoholic options.
Image: Summer Beer Thing
Organised by the teams behind prolific beer bars Port Street Beer House, Common and The Beagle, the festival will bring brewers from across the country down to the waterside location to showcase their latest creations.
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Summer Beer Thing first began in 2017 at Sadler’s Yard, with over 3,000 people visiting across the weekend each year.
A showcase of different beer styles, the festival has bars dedicated to hoppy, session, fruit and sour beers and the feel of a party with beer as the focal point with plenty for both experts and beginners in the world of craft ale.
Tickets are priced between £6 and £10 and are on sale now via the Summer Beer Thing website.
Ticket holders will also be given a branded glass to take home after the festival, and can purchase tokens to spend at a range of festival bars featuring craft beers, fruits and sours, hoppy, hoppier and session beers as well as a range of non-beer drinks.
Feature image – Summer Beer Thing
Manchester
Brewdog’s beer hotel in Manchester has closed with immediate effect
Daisy Jackson
The ‘beer hotel’ operated by Brewdog in Manchester has closed with immediate effect, as part of the Scottish brewery’s £33m sale.
A whopping 38 Brewdog bars around the UK have closed, resulting in hundreds of job losses.
As well as the beer hotel known as DogHouse in Manchester, which was home to a large bar and rooftop terrace, the Oxford Road brewpub known as the OutPost has also closed.
The DogHouse Hotel on Fountain Street had a range of boutique bedrooms, fitted with features like beer fridges in the shower, beer taps in the room, guitars, record players, and pet beds.
Just 11 pubs have been retained in the rescue deal, including the Brewdog bar on Peter Street in Manchester city centre.
The brewery has been bought by US beverage and medical cannabis company Tilray for £33m, a sale which includes its UK brewery operations, brand, and a handful of pubs.
Yesterday, Brewdog announced all of its bars would be closed for the day to enable staff to attend staff meetings.
Administrators confirmed yesterday that 484 jobs had been lost in the sale, with 38 bars closing.
Unite, the union which represents thousands of hospitality workers, said it is ‘appalled’ at how Brewdog staff have been treated during the sale.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This is a devastating day for Brewdog workers. Nearly 500 lost livelihoods while yet another corporate deal is stitched together behind closed doors.
“Brewdog workers built this brand. They deserved respect. Instead, they were treated as disposable pawns. Unite will not rest until our members have legal and financial justice.”
Unite national lead for hospitality Bryan Simpson said: “The way in which senior management have conducted themselves throughout this sales process has been nothing short of a national disgrace – with workers being given no information about the company’s plans or their futures.
“For the CEO to tell workers that they were redundant with immediate effect, on a conference call with only 25 minutes notice, has echoes of P&O and is deplorable. Unite will be ensuring that our members receive everything they are legally entitled to.”
Brewdog was founded in 2007 by friends James Watt and Martin Dickie.
Council approves £1 billion budget to ‘improve Manchester’ after 14 years of Government funding cuts
Emily Sergeant
Manchester City Council has officially approved a £1 billion budget for 2026/27.
After 14 years of funding cuts and ‘unfunded pressures’ from 2010 to 2024, which saw Manchester among the hardest hit places in the country, Manchester City Council says that its financial position has improved this year due to ‘fairer funding’ from the current Government which overall reflects the city’s needs.
For the first time this year, the Council’s revenue budget exceeds £1 billion (£1.045 billion, to be exact.)
This leaves the Council able to invest even more in supporting residents’ priorities, and ultimately begin to build back some of things which were previously affected by austerity.
As well as continuing to support those who are considered to be most in-need in the city, this current 2026/27 budget also makes a series of investments in measures – which the Council says will make ‘visible improvements’ across the city.
Some of these measures include £5.13m towards ‘ significantly enhancing’ street cleaning services across the city, more than £1.7m to boost the maintenance of public spaces, especially parks and green spaces, and almost £1m to further crack down on flytipping and littering.
This year, there’ll also be one-off investments of £1.1m improve road, pavement, and path surfaces, and £500,000 to increase pavement and footpath gritting in local centres.
The Council has approved a £1 billion budget to ‘improve Manchester’ / Credit: Chris Curry (via Unsplash) | Manchester City Council
Elsewhere, capital funding will continue to be used to build the Council, social, and ‘genuinely affordable’ homes that the city needs, as well as invest in local high streets and district centres across the city.
“Manchester is an incredible city which we are all proud to call home,” commented Cllr Bev Craig, who is the leader of Manchester City Council.
“We’re seeing record levels of investment in our neighbourhoods and communities, more council and social homes built than for decades and stronger economic growth than anywhere in the UK.
“But we believe that Manchester can be even better, and that’s what we’re determined that this budget will help achieve – a city where everyone can have a good home, a good job and a good life in an well cared for, invested-in neighbourhood.
“That’s exactly where the extra funding available to us in this budget is being focused.”
Georgina Pellant -
20th June 2022 
