The annual Norwich City of Ale celebration has partnered with location-based app, Loka, for this year’s event, which takes place in the city from 21 – 31 May.

City of Ale will play host to ale trails, quizzes and other events over the 10-day period, and through the Loka tie-up, visitors will be able to receive special offers and rewards on their smartphone.

Loka has been working with many of the participating pubs and breweries to collate information to promote during the festival, including details about upcoming events, ale trails, and exclusive beers on sale. Loka has installed specialist Bluetooth Low Energy beacons directly into many of the participating City of Ale pubs, in order to release tailored content and exclusive offers to those nearby.

“Businesses are striving for new audiences and to be able to engage with consumers in a way that is relevant and personalised,” says Jon Worley, CEO of the marketing division at Proxama, the company behind the Loka app. “The pubs and breweries who are taking part in the City of Ale festival will, for the first time be able to connect with people, via their smartphones, who are in close vicinity to their establishment to let them know about any special offers or events, before they have even walked in the door.”

To celebrate City of Ale’s fifth anniversary, five breweries, including Grain, Golden Triangle, Panther, Humpty Dumpty and S&P, joined forces to brew a special charity beer called Wymer’s Gold, which will see 50p of every pint sold donated to the Hamlet Centre Trust, which support children and young adults with disabilities.

As part of the charity partnership, Loka will be promoting the charity beer to its users to showcase which participating City of Ale pubs will be serving it. The app will also enable customers to add a donation to the Hamlet Centre Trust when customers buy their pint of Wymer’s Gold at the bar.

The City of Ale beer list, currently listing more than 225 local ales, is powered by PintPicker, the UK’s cask ale flavour comparison database. PintPicker produces a visual flavour footprint for each beer, based on drinkers’ reviews, and these footprints, together with pump clip images and descriptions, are fed into the City of Ale beer list.. PintPicker and Loka are planning to share live feeds to enable the app to display a list of each pub’s available beers.