Keighley's annual beer festival is set to be another heady success.

The festival is aiming to be bigger and better than ever, with more than 50 different brews - some from Europe - on draught.

Keighley Beer Festival organisers, the Keighley Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, expect to sell more than 4,000 pints of beer over the three-day event which kicks off on Thursday evening, September 24.

The event is being held at Keighley-based Worth Brewery and organisers are catering for at least 1,000 customers.

To mark the return of the festival to the brewery - it has been at Victoria Hall for the last three years - there will be a special brew.

Organiser Jenny Baker says: "We hope to have over 50 different draught beers on sale, including a selection of Worth beers brewed on the premises, as well as brews from further afield. About a third of the beers will be served through handpumps so that where possible northern beers can be served with a traditional northern head. There will be a selection of traditional ciders and a range of foreign beers, including several from Belgium and Germany."

The festival, first launched in 1986, is also to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Keighley & Worth valley railway, on which draught, handpump beers are sold in the buffet carriage. The railway is holding a celebratory event this weekend (see story on page 5). To mark the celebration, a souvenir beer festival T-shirt will include a steam engine logo.

Musical entertainment will be provided by the duo Two Steps Back on the Friday night. They play music from the 60s and 70s.

"It is likely that tickets for the Friday night will sell out in advance so we do not expect to let people in without a ticket on that evening," Jenny says. "But it should be possible to pay on the door on Thursday evening and Saturday, but we cannot guarantee this."

The festival kicks off on Thursday evening when the doors open at 5.30pm. Friday will see sessions from noon-4.30pm and 6-11pm. Sessions on Saturday are from 11am-4pm and 5.30-10.30pm. Ticket prices are £1 on Thursday, £2 on Friday evening, and £1.50p on Saturday. CAMRA members can get in free on Thursday and Friday morning, 50p for other sessions.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.