Chelmsford City Beer & Cider Festival 15-19 July

I welcome a good friend, John Stack, who is guest blogger of the day, but first must apologise, I still haven't worked out how to cut & paste without altering the appearance of the blog, so apologies for being a neo-Luddite, but a great read, and quite a few ales I've not reported on before, and photographs from him too, cheers John! Oh yes, and he didn't have a pint of all of them, allegedly...

The venue was Admirals Park in Chelmsford, and the entrance was free before 5 pm with a £3 deposit for a special festival glass, which was refundable should you already have too many glasses! The setting was a large park on the outskirts of town.  

The set-up was straightforward, involving some huge tents covering the dispensers of over 300 varieties of ale, 100 real ciders, perries and ‘pyders’, and a large selection of international beers from around the world.

There was plenty of room on arrival (Friday) but, by the end of the evening, it was chock a block with several thousand people all enjoying the drink, music and food that was on offer (chips, burgers, hog roast, Cornish pasties and German sausage) - your usual beer festival fayre.

There were approximately 110 breweries represented over the festival and several took the opportunity to display a large selection of their ales for the punter to try.  Breweries included: Woodfordes, Wibblers, Stonehenge, Roosters, Otter, Oakham, Mumbles, Lochness, Felstar, Camerons, Brains and Abbeydale.

After walking around for about 10 minutes I decided it was time to get sampling, I have not put these in any particular order but over the evening I sampled the following.  Here are brief descriptions of drinks with my personal view of each, but do remember, different people have different tastes...

Abbeydale Moonshine 4.3% Sheffield - This is a drink I use to drink many moons ago when I lived in Sheffield and I have not seen it for a few years.  This is a very easy to drink pale Golden ale which has a slightly citrus taste.  Really do rate this drink. 9/10

Bishop Nick Heresy 4.0% Essex - This is from one of the many Essex breweries that were here today.  This is a golden beer which had a bitter taste about it but not too strong, it seemed to be very popular the time I was purchasing this and would not hesitate to buy more of this, but with me on ‘special duties’ I declined some more of this drink.  7/10

Butcombe Gold 4.4% Bristol - This was a Golden ale which I had not tried before.  The various elements that hit your taste buds when drinking this make Gold a very enjoyable drink.  What surprised me with the heat of the day is that the pint actually felt slightly chilled which was a pleasant surprise. 8/10

Camerons Gold Bullion  4.3% Hartlepool - This is one of the few breweries I hear about a lot but have never actually got round to trying one of their brews. This drink was also golden with a good hoppy flavour which was easy to drink and also had a nice citrus flavour about it. 6/10

Felstar Hoppy Hen  5% Essex - This is another local brewery which is only a few miles outside of Chelmsford.  They had 3 ales to choose from but I picked Hoppy Hen. This is a premium Old Ale. Have to admit I found this drink was very hoppy indeed.  Anyone looking for a strong hoppy flavour then this is one you should look out for.  I personally did not enjoy this but everyone enjoys different things about ales, this one did not do it for me.  5/10

Mighty Oak Kings 4.2% - Yet another Essex Brewery, told you there were a lot of them here! This drink had a description of a golden beer brewed with Citra hops.  I have to say that there was quite an acidic/citrus taste off this one, which was pretty powerful. If you enjoy citrus flavour then this would be one for you but unfortunately was a bit strong in taste for me 5/10

Woodfordes Bure Gold 4.3% Norfolk - Woodfordes always have a good variety at Chelmsford Beer festival.  This year was no different as they even had their own pumps. I went for Bure Gold. This was a golden ale which apparently used American and Slovenian hops in order to get the flavours. Have to admit I found it easy to drink and would have drunk more. 7/10

Oakham Gangster 4.9% Peterborough - Oakham are one of the bigger breweries from Peterborough and I have always enjoyed drinking their ales.  This year at Chelmsford they had their own bar and quite a large selection to choose from.  I went for Gangster. This was a ‘golden ale’ with a deep copper colour.  This was very enjoyable and had a fairly dry hoppy taste to it.  Would liked to have tried some of the others on show but needed to try some other breweries tastes.  7/10

Stonehenge Danish Dynamite 5% Wiltshire - Have to admit, along with Abbeydale, this was my favourite drink of the day.  This was golden ale which was strong but that had well balanced flavours that make it an enjoyable drink.  Would highly recommend this to any person who enjoys different flavours bouncing off your palate making for a flavoursome drink.  Very good 9.5/10

Wibblers Cherry Blonde 4.3% Essex - Wibblers is another Essex brewery and had several ales on offer.  I went for Cherry Blonde which came under the description of a fruit/spice ale.  This drink had a lovely hint of cherry when it hit the palate.  Was a very nice drink which I enjoyed. 7/10

Just before the end of my tasting spree I decided to finish the night with something different so I went to the Cider/Perry section of the festival.  There were so many to choose from but I decided to go for Abrahalls Thundering Molly 5.2% Worcestershire - Have to admit I drank 1½ pints of this, it was a lovely Medium cider that had a lovely aroma around it.  It was not too strong but was very refreshing after the heat of the evening and all of my other tasting which I enjoyed.

Hope you enjoyed the summary! 

From me now, thanks again to John, and I can understand his liking for the Danish Dynamite, a crackin' ale, indeed. I have to admit I'd have loved to have tried the ales from Mighty Oak and Oakham, in particular, great breweries both, but many more lovely ales too, only jealous, a lot, cheers!