Beer Festivals

Southern Hampshire CAMRA has been running Southampton Beer Festival in its current format since 1997. The first 20 events were at Southampton Guildhall and in 2017 Southampton Beer Festival moved to St Mary's Stadium.

In 2010 we added to this by organising an Autumn Festival, in Woolston, appropriately called Woolston Beer Festival. We repeated this the next year and it has become annual event.

In 2011 we held Winchester Real Ale and Cider Festival at the end of March, returning a CAMRA beer festival to Winchester Guildhall after a gap of 28 years. This was another big success and remained so up until 2020 when it was the last CAMRA beer festival before the Covid lockdown. Since then we have been unable to return to the Guildhall but 2024 is looking good for a new venue 7th & 8th June, more details soon.

All the staff at our beer festivals are volunteers. Many members of Southern Hampshire CAMRA also volunteer their time to work at the Great British Beer Festival each year.

Some of our aims in running beer festivals are:

• To serve customers quality cask conditioned real ale.
• To promote real ale to the local community, therefore increasing its popularity.
• To promote membership of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale.

If you'd like us to email you and let you know when we're holding beer festivals then join our "beerfests" mailing list and we'll keep you informed!

Listing policy

For CAMRA beer festivals we list those within 50 miles of our branch area. Please check the individual websites for details. We to research non-CAMRA festivals as best we can and list those within 25 miles of our branch area. Inevitably we will miss a few, some aren't well publicized, so if you know of more please drop us an email and let us know. In any case you should check with the venue for any last minute changes before attending.

CAMRA Beer Festivals

• Basingstoke Beer Festival – 5th, 6th & 7th September 2025
  Basingstoke Sports & Social Club, May's Bounty Cricket Ground, Fairfields Road, Basingstoke, RG21 3DR
  Free entrance. 12:00 – 23:00 Friday & Saturday, 12:00 – 16:00 Sunday. Over 40 real ales, craft beers & ciders. Food available until 9pm. Entertainment Saturday evening. Run by CAMRA North Hampshire Branch.
   
• 16th Ascot Racecourse Beer Festival – 3rd & 4th October 2025
  Ascot Racecourse, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7JX
  Organised by CAMRA Berkshire South-East, in conjunction with Ascot Racecourse. Just the dates for now.
   
• Weymouth Octoberfest – 3rd & 4th October 2025
  Weymouth Pavilion Ocean Room, The Esplanade, Weymouth, Dorset, DT4 8ED
  Just the dates for now. This is what we said last year: 11:00 – 16:00 & 18:30 – 23:30 both days. Tickets £12 each session, including one pint ale or cider, and on sale from 1st August. Entrance by advance ticket only. Run by West Dorset CAMRA.
   
• Woolston Beer Festival – 31st October & 1st November 2025
  Pear Tree Church Hall, Woolston, Southampton SO19 2HA
  Just the dates for now but expect up to 30 cask beers, ciders, craft beer, bottled/canned beers. & food. Open Fri 11:30 – 16:00 & 18:00 – 22:30; Sat 11:30 – 16:00 & 18:00 – 22:30. Tickets TBA. Entertainment both evenings. All details will be on woolstonbeerfestival.camra.org.uk. Run by Southern Hampshire CAMRA.
   

For CAMRA festivals over the whole of the UK see the main CAMRA website
 

Non-CAMRA Beer Festivals

Many beer festivals take place in our branch area, or nearby, that are not CAMRA beer festivals. Despite being unable to endorse these events, we believe that any beer festival that sells quality cask-conditioned real ales should be supported (see you there!). The information given here is purely for the benefit of readers, and is accurate to the best of our knowledge.
To get your beer festival listed here send an email to beerfestivals@shantscamra.org.uk

If you know of any more non-CAMRA beer festivals in our branch area then please email the details to us.