The Old Anchor Inn Beer Festival

The Old Anchor on St. Helen’s Wharf in Abingdon has a beer festival this weekend from Friday 16th July until Sunday 18th July.

All of the beers are from local breweries, most of which are rarely or never seen in any Abingdon pubs. A provisional list is:

Beer abv Brewery
Quarry w-RECK-ed 5.5% Old Bog Brewery
Pole Position 5% Pitstop Brewery
Old Hooky 4.6% Hook Norton
Marshmellow 4.7% Oxfordshire Ales
Alfreds Draught 4.6% Adkins Brewery
Scholar 4.5% Shotover Brewery
Vale Special 4.5% Vale Brewery
Abingdon Ale 4.8% West Berskshire
Power Station 4.2% Appleford Brewery
Village Idiot 4.1% White Horse Brewery
Wychert Ale 3.9% Vale Brewery
Triple B 3.7% Oxfordshire Ales
Prospect 3.7% Shotover Brewery
Alfreds Honey Golden 4% Adkins Brewery
Brightwell Gold 4% Appleford Brewery
Hooky Gold 4.1% Hook Norton
Black Swan Mild 3.9% Vale Brewery

There will also be 2 real ciders and live music.

Brewery Tap Cider Festival


The Brewery Tap in Ock Street, Abingdon is holding a Cider festival this weekend (Friday 25th June – Sunday 27th June).

It will feature 21 different ciders, including a rare breed of ciders from local sources and CAMRA award winners.

The full list of ciders and perrys along with tasting notes can be downloaded here

There will also be a selection of world beers, and a selection of interestingly flavoured sausages that have been very popular at the previous beer festivals.

Sunday afternoon should be good, watching England beat Germany whilst drinking some traditionally made real English ciders.

The Plough is Reopening

There is a notice of the window in the Plough on Stert Street saying that it will be reopening on 1st July. I don’t know any more at this stage, but if I find anything out I’ll update this post.

The Plough is a classic local pub, with a pool table, darts board and TVs. Beer is from Greene King with IPA always available and usually a Greene King seasonal guest.

Various Updates on Abingdon Pubs

The Railway Inn in Culham has The Festival That Dare Not Speak It’s Name this weekend (Friday 28th May – Monday 31st). This is a charity event featuring lots of live music with proceeds going to Churchill Partners Cancer Research UK and Young Women’s Music Project.

The Flowing Well in Sunningwell has its beer festival starting this week (May 27th – June 6th). This coincides with the Sunningwell Festival.

The Brewery Tap was recently awarded Locale accreditation by the Oxford branch of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) in recognition of it regularly serving beer from local breweries including the West Berkshire Brewery, White Horse Brewery and Vale Brewery…. and this weekend for the first time, Prospect from the Shotover Brewery. They also regularly have live bands on Sunday evenings. This bank holiday sunday they have Parallel Blondie. They will be holding a Cider and Sausage Festival on the last weekend of June (June 24th-27th) featuring around 20 real ciders and seasonal beers from around the world.

The Prince of Wales in Shippon now has 6 real ales served in excellent condition, including beer from the local Shotover Brewery. The kitchen has now been refurbished, and there is also live music there most saturdays, and occasionally some Morris dancers and folk musicians during the week.

The Plough in Stert Street remains shut.

The Broad Face serves 3 beers from the Greene King guest range in good condition. There is a regular jazz music session on Sunday afternoons starting at 4pm and sometimes some live music on thursdays. They are in the early stages of planning a beer festival in September.

The Spread Eagle on Northcourt Road is serving beer from Greene King range in very good condition and also has an interesting menu.

The Boundary House on Oxford Road has built a fenced-in family area, although currently it only features a small sand pit, but it does stop children running off the beer garden into the busy road.

The Old Anchor is having a beer festival in July. I’ll post more details when I get them.

The Kings Head and Bell is in early stages of planning a beer festival on the August bank holiday weekend (August 28th-30th), which will include beer from the local Appleford brewery and Hook Norton and possibly demonstrations of traditional coopers (barrel makers) and Hook Norton’s Shire Horse drawn dray

The Loose Cannon Brewery has suffered some delays getting up and running, but is expecting to do some trial brews over the next month.

Flowing Well in Sunningwell

The Flowing Well in Sunningwell near Abingdon has recently reopened with new management.

They are currently serving Morlands Original, Olde Trip and GK IPA and awaiting new guest beer.

They will be holding a Beer Festival from May 27th to June 6th.

I haven’t visited yet since the new management took over, but previously it has been a pleasant place to visit in the summer with a large beer garden (With a well at the bottom), children’s outside play area and situated in the unspoilt village of Sunningwell which is easily reached by walking or cycling from Abingdon along the footpath heading north from Dunmore Road.

You can get more info about the pub from their web site at www.theflowingwell.co.uk