Landlords and brewers from across Norwich are being urged to lend their support to help make this year's City of Ale festival the biggest and best yet.

The celebration of pubs, beer and brewing, which started in Norwich in 2011, will be back again later this year.

And preparations are getting under way later this week, when organisers hold their first meeting of the year.

Dawn Leeder, co-chair of Norwich City of Ale, called on as many people as possible involved in the city's pubs and brewing trade to get to the meeting at the Murderers pub in Timber Hill and help make it another 'hugely successful festival'.

She said: 'We've started particularly early this year and are trying to get as many pubs and breweries on board as possible.

'This is our seventh year and as usual, in keeping with our status as the first UK City of Ale, we shall continue to innovate with exciting new events and attractions.

'All are welcome to our first meeting on Friday. We expect to see some new faces as a couple of new breweries have opened in Norfolk in the past few months.'

Norwich City of Ale, which this year runs from May 25 until June 4, has been featured in this year's Good Beer Guide, produced by the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), where it is described as an event which 'embraces the whole community'. The feature, which sees Norwich compared to two other cities, Sheffield and Derby, has been welcomed by Miss Leeder who said the coverage is testament to the way the festival is now viewed as a fixture in the city's social calendar.

She added: 'What with all the City of Ale 2017 planning, plus the upcoming National Winter Ales Festival next month, it's a very exciting time to be involved in the local pub and brewing scene.'

As previously reported, Norwich will play host to the national Winter Ales Festival for the next three years with the first event taking place from February 21 to 25 at St Andrew's and Blackfriars' halls.

The City of Ale meeting takes place from 10am on Friday.