This beer festival is the one I've been waiting for all summer! Billed as a great adventure journey for myself - I boarded the train at Chelmsford, changed at Marks Tey and rode the special service up to Chappel and the East Anglian Railway Museum.
 | | Train carriages used as saloons. |
Once there I decided that I had been to the Victorian Station and Musuem many years previously, as part of a dressing up school day out to learn about Victorian life. On that day I got the cane! Today hopefully would be a little more relaxed. After getting my first pint we retired to a train compartment aboard a 1970s passenger carriage, which warned us of engineering work taking place at King's Cross in 1977. The beautiful velvet seats were a great reminder of how people used to travel in comfort. Sometime later, Josie from Edgeware Road climbed aboard. She was at the festival with her son and grandson who always make a point of travelling up from Liverpool Street to this beer festival. Going across the Chappel Viaduct being especially pleasing for Josie.
 | | One of the bars in the Railway sheds. |
Of the festival, she says "It's got a good atmosphere and it's not too crowded in the bar areas", unlike a few other London beer festivals she's been too. "And it's handy that there's the train to travel on as you don't need to think about transport too much". Josie is a big fan of the Belguim Beers and that's what she's slowly sipping. She tells me that her drink has "corriander and orange in it!" When I ask her why she doesn't want to try any of the local real ales on offer she screws up her face and says "That's a man's game - real ale!" The railway signs and trains all provide a fascinating back drop the festival and even if you're NOT a train spotter (like myself) they'll be some that will interest you on display. It's time for some food and a pasty, chips and beans is the order of the day - and I think that the pasty was home-made. The hot mid-day sun beats down and I sit there sipping my beer, blissfully wondering what might have been had I knuckled down and pursued my Victorian School Days........ the perfect way to await the arrival of the train back home. Oliver's drinks list:
 | | A beautiful setting for a beer festival. |
1. Saffron Blonde (4.3%) - brewed locally in Henham; a very drinakable, smooth brew that's very light in colour. 2. Green Tye - Union Jack - (3.6%) - brewed just across the border in Hertfordshire, it's dark in colour and a little on the sharp side, but it's nice to try different drinks 3. Bottled Water - Too hot towards the end, but that's not the festival organisers fault! Water - good! | 
