Belfast Whiskey Week 2026 Day by Day: Build Your Festival
The Belfast Whiskey Week 2026 programme runs nine days, Friday 24 July to Saturday 1 August — 115+ events, more than 40 distilleries and brands, and three strands to steer by: BiaFest for food, Cocktail City for cocktails, and the Fringe for everything whiskey culture throws up. Nine days is too many to wing it and too few to waste. Here's one way to build your festival, day by day.
One thing to know before you plan: the city around the festival is at full throttle that week. Belfast Pride runs until 26 July, Féile an Phobail starts on the 25th, EastSide Arts opens on 24 July under the banner "Uniquely East", and TradFest fills the pubs with fiddles from the 26th. Whiskey Week threads through all of it.
Friday 24 July — open with lunch
Start as you mean to continue: seated, fed, glass in hand. The Expressions of Pot Still lunch at Roam Restaurant opens BiaFest at 11am on day one — pot still whiskey, Ireland's signature style, matched course by course. Spend the evening getting your bearings in the Cathedral Quarter, the festival's heartland: the Duke of York up Commercial Court, The Friend at Hand whiskey shop and museum on Hill Street, The Spaniard if you can find a stool.
Saturday 25 July — whiskey in the morning, Pride at one
Parade day. The Pride in Whiskey Tour leaves room2 Hotel on Queen Street at 9:30am — a two-hour walking tour led by Sam, £25 — and lands you back with time to spare before the Belfast Pride parade moves off from Custom House Square at 1pm under this year's theme, "Love In Every Colour". Do the tour, cheer the parade, then let the afternoon take care of itself.
Sunday 26 July — take it at session pace
Belfast TradFest begins today: a week of traditional music across some forty venues. Music in the Parks is on at Botanic Gardens too — free brass and concert bands, 2–5pm, and it costs you nothing but the walk. Ease back in with an evening whiskey tasting. Sunday is a night for seanchas — the storytelling tradition — and a tasting table is where Belfast does it best.
Monday 27 – Wednesday 29 July — get out to the distilleries
Midweek is when you leave the city. County Down holds a ring of working distilleries within easy reach of Belfast: Killowen at Rostrevor, Ireland's smallest, running open-flame direct-fired pot stills; Copeland in the coastal town of Donaghadee; Echlinville at Kircubbin on the Ards Peninsula, growing its own barley field-to-bottle; Hinch at Killaney Estate near Ballynahinch; and Rademon Estate, home of Shortcross, at Crossgar. In the city itself there's Titanic Distillers at the Thompson Dock Pumphouse — Belfast's first working distillery in almost 90 years — and McConnell's at Crumlin Road Gaol. Pick two or three from the distillery days collection and pace yourself.
Two midweek fixed points. On Tuesday 28 July the Pride in Whiskey Tour runs a lunchtime session, 12–2pm, £25. And on Wednesday 29 July, if you fancy a night off the dram, Julian Marley — son of Bob — plays Limelight 2 at 7pm (18+).
Thursday 30 July — Cocktail City
The Cocktail Takeover at Common Market starts at 6pm — the Cocktail City strand at full tilt, whiskey doing things your grandfather wouldn't recognise and would probably have enjoyed anyway.
Friday 31 July — last calls before the finale
The Pride in Whiskey Tour runs its final session, 12–2pm. Spend the evening on the bars you've missed — The Morning Star down Pottinger's Entry, The Garrick on Chichester Street, Muriel's on Church Lane — and keep it civilised. Tomorrow is the big one.
Saturday 1 August — EXPO day
The Whiskey EXPO is the festival finale, with sessions from midday. By happy accident of the calendar, the Féile an Phobail Carnival Parade sets off at noon the same day — catch West Belfast's festival rolling out, then walk into a room full of distillers. Few cities hand you a Saturday like it.
Sunday 2 August — stay for the Fleadh
Whiskey Week ends on the Saturday night, but don't book the early flight. On 2 August, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann comes to Belfast for the first time ever — the biggest event in traditional Irish music, in this city, at last. One more day. You'll thank yourself.
Tickets are sold per event — the Whiskey Map shows everything in one place for the days you'd rather roam. Start with the full programme, anchor your week on the EXPO, and build outwards. Sláinte.
