Keighley Beer Festival, due to be held at the end of this month, has been axed.

The organisers, the Keighley and Craven branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, have been unable to find a suitable venue.

They have been searching for a new location since the closure of Worth Brewery in Keighley, earlier this year, where the festival has been held for six out of the past eight years.

The brewery closed in January after owner John Mitchell, 40, was jailed for 12 months. He pleaded guilty to failing to pay £30,000 in excise duty on beer brewed by his company, Green Bottle Ltd.

His wife Allyson, 40, the company secretary, was found guilty at an earlier hearing, of evasion of duty on beer and convicted on a charge of failing to pay more than £6,000 in VAT. She was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years. Branch chairman and festival organiser, Richard Candeland, said "It's very unfortunate. I've had a number of people come up to me in the street and ask 'What's happened to the festival?'

"But it has been difficult to find somewhere that fits the bill.

"We had an offer to use an industrial unit in the Keighley area, but we feared it was not big enough and it was touch and go whether we would break even."

The fire service ruled that it could only accommodate 200 people, but previous festivals had catered for about 300 a session.

Victoria Hall in Keighley was not considered because of the expense - the festival needed to occupy a building for four days to prepare the real ale, said Mr Candeland.

It was held there in 1997 and 1998 and the festival had lost money in 1998.

But he stressed that the festival had only been postponed this year and that organisers were going back again to look at the industrial unit in the hope the numbers could be increased.

"We don't want to disclose at this time where the unit is. But it is in the wider Keighley area," he said.

The aim is to organise another event in September next year, the traditional time for the Keighley festival.

"We are in the process of gathering further information to put to the fire officer while at the same time reviewing the way we run the festival to see if we can cut costs," he added.

This year would have been the 13th Keighley Beer Festival. The first festivals were held in Keighley Drill Hall in Lawkholme Lane in the late 1980s but after an IRA attack on another drill hall in the country, the Ministry of Defence barred them for public use.

From 1992 to 1995 they were held at Worth Brewery, in 1996 and '97 in Victoria Hall and then Worth Brewery since 1998.