White Horse Beer Festival, Chelmsford

I've been in the pub a lot in the last few weeks.
I guess this means two things:
1) That's why I haven't written on here in a while... time spent on the PC isn't time in the pub! Hence,
2) I owe you some updates. So here's the first in a series of catch-ups from London and The World Famous County of Essex.

I've written about the White Horse previously; Nick and I went here on our Route March Pub Crawl of Chelmsford. It's a good back street pub that takes its beer seriously, as you'd expect from a pub owned by the award-winning Crouch Vale. So the news that they were having a beer festival drew visitors all the way from, er, London SE19 - OK, Al and Louise were up for the weekend.



The festival was in a big marquee in the car park - and both that and pub itself were were busy; if we hadn't already barbequed, there was also a roast out on the patio. By the time we arrived at 5pm Saturday, many of the beers had gone - and it was obvious that many of the locals had been in there since lunchtime! - but there was still plenty left for us to try.



There was a good selection of bottled beers too, and we tried Burton Bridge Bramble Stout and Salopian Entire Butt English Porter: proof yet again that if a beer has a silly name, you'll try it!



I vaguely recall having a pint of Branscombe Vale Branoc and some Sharps too, I think. I must remember to write these in the programme next time...



It wasn't the Great British Beer Festival - a suburban car park with a few patio sets is not the most glamorous of locations (although neither is Earls Court to be fair!) - but this sort of event is precisely why The Queens Head wins awards and also why we're very lucky to have the White Horse a short stroll away from the house. Roll on the Chelmsford Winter Beer Festival in February!