Colchester Winter Beer Festival

Today I took a train ride to Colchester for the Colchester Winter Beer Festival.

It was my third visit to it (see my blog posts from 2025 here and 2024 here). I came on the Thursday in the hope of finding it less busy than a Friday and Saturday and was rewarded by having a seat at a table all afternoon - although even though I had joined the queue nearly 1/4 hour before opening I got one of the last seats. Here are some photos.

The Colchester Arts Centre is in a deconsecrated church.

It is close to the iconic Jumbo water tower, symbol of Colchester.

I joiuned the queue here at 11:48.

It is free entry for all until 3pm.

This is the Graveside Bar.

And ahead is the Stage bar.

It was still quite empty to start with.

The seats were all taken, though.

And here's my forst of the day, some Mersea Island Nersea Mud mild.

Here's the full beer list.

Not all the beers were on though. I mostly stuck to milds, poreter and stouts, and drinking 1/3 pint at a time I managed to get 9 different beers from my beer cards before leaving just before 4 to walk back to the station for my 4:45 train home.

Beers I had were:

• Ampersand Dark Mild (Mild) 3.4% 
• Brentwood Santa's Blotto (Stout) 4.5% - my favourite of the day
• Colchester Old King Coel (Porter) 5%
• Drinkstone Stout (Stout) 4.2% - my last one
• Mersea Island Mersea Mud (Mild) 3.7%
• Mersea Island Oyster (Stout) 5.1% - I liked this one
• Milestone Luck of the Irish (Stout) 4.8% - my first stout
• Mr Bees Wally Bitter (Bitter) 3.6% - not on the programme
• Wharf Scruffy Mild (Mild) 3.9%

A great day out once again. I'll be back next year, I'm sure.