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Norwich, City of Ale by Willard Clarke, 06/011 A brilliant initiative by pub owners and brewers put beer on the map in Norwich during City of Ale, which ran for 10 days from 26 May. Thirty-one pubs and 35 breweries in Norwich and Norfolk supported the beer extravaganza, which won daily coverage in the press. There was no missing the event. All the participating pubs bore a giant banner outside announcing "Fine City - Fine Ale" and a red bus toured Norwich with the same message on the sides. The event was enthusiastically backed by the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, which saw City of Ale as complementary to the annual CAMRA beer festival in the city, held in October. Pubs that backed the event each held small beer festivals. Space was set aside for casks of ale from Norfolk breweries so that customers could enjoy a wide range of beers and tastes from craft producers in the county. The brewers ranged from Woodforde's, now a major regional brewer, to some new producers working on a part-time basis. City of Ale was planned by Dawn Leeder and Phil Cutter. Dawn is a Cambridge academic with a passion for cask beer who runs a website called PintPicker. This is a cask ale database that offers a range of descriptors for beer, including sweet, bitter, burnt, hops, citrus and winey, along with colour, body and ABV. PintPicker was explained and illustrated in the programme for City of Ale and both publicans and brewers found that drinkers were encouraged to broaden their appreciation of beer by using the tasting notes for all the beers on offer. PintPicker welcomes drinkers' participation: go to pintpicker.co.uk to view the system and post your own analysis of cask beers. Phil Cutter runs the Gardiners Arms in Timberhill in Norwich, a pub better known by its macabre nickname of the Murderers as a result of a slaying that took place there many years ago. Phil is an experienced landlord who has seen his business grow as a result of serving a good range of nine cask ales, ciders and quality genuine lagers. As a result of taking over an adjacent building, Phil now has more space in the Murderers and he set aside part of the extension to serve around two dozen guest beers during the festival, all helpfully chalked on a blackboard. Even the smallest pub in Norwich joined in the fun. The Vine in Dove Street is tiny but offered not only a good range of cask ales and Budvar on draught, but half a dozen casks ranged along one wall with beers from local breweries. The pub also serves delicious Thai food and has a small restaurant upstairs. Other pubs involved in the event included Ketts Tavern, on the site of the 16th-century rebellion led by Robert Kett against land enclosures, and the Fat Cat (left), one of the best-known free houses in England with 25 cask beers and 50 imported bottled beers. On the first Saturday of City of Ale many of the participating brewers gathered outside the Forum in central Norwich to give free tasters of their beers to people shopping or using the public library. CAMRA also had a stand and distributed leaflets and newsletters and recruited new members. City of Ale was boosted by superb coverage by the Eastern Daily Press, England's biggest circulation regional newspaper, and its evening paper. The event highlighted graphically the return of good beer and brewing to a city and county that was ravaged by brewery closures in the 1960s and 70s. The London brewer Watneys bought and closed three substantial breweries in Norwich - Bullards, Morgans and Steward & Patteson - and also closed hundreds of pubs in Norfolk, doing terrible damage to rural life as a result. But now good beer is back on the agenda thanks to the initiative of Dawn Leeder and Phil Cutter and the brewers and publicans who backed them. Right: the closing ceremony complete with giant pint. It's an initiative that could and should be taken up other towns and cities in Britain with a good range of pubs, craft breweries and a public transport network. Nottingham and Sheffield, with their tram systems, spring to mind. Norwich has led the way and let's hope other parts of the country pick up the torch.

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