THE first pint was pulled last night to launch an annual beer festival.

Thousands of pints of real ale and cider will be downed by lovers of traditional ales at Durham Students' Union building, Dunelm House, in New Elvet, Durham City.

The 27th Durham Beer Festival began at 5.30pm yesterday, as organiser Neil Shaw, chairman of the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, sampled one of the 79 beers on offer.

Among them is one brewed in honour of Jim McCaffery, a festival and branch stalwart, who died this year.

Durham Brewery, in Bowburn, marked Mr McCaffery's contribution to the event with a commemorative ale, JMC Strong Bitter.

There are also beers produced to mark the fifth anniversary of another city micro-brewery, Hill Island.

The festival will be the first to offer draught Double Maxim and Samson bitter, since production returned to the North-East after the opening of the Double Maxim Beer Company's brewing plant at Rainton Bridge, near Sunderland, this week.

Mr Shaw said: "It is our fifth year back since we revived it, and I am told it is starting to return to the level it reached at its peak in the Eighties."

Deputy Mayor Grenville Holland will join drinkers at 2pm today, giving his civic blessing to the event.

The festival runs from 11am to 11pm today and tomorrow, while stocks last.