Category Archives: Abingdon Pubs

Kings Head & Bell – 1st Annual Abingdon Beer Festival

The Kings Head and Bell in Abingdon, which reopened last autumn is holding its first annual beer festival this weekend from saturday 29th August until monday. The festival features aproximately 20 real ales, which are all from local breweries including Appleford, Vale, Hook Norton and others that did not have pump clips on yet when I looked on friday.

Kings Head and Bell - Stillage, the day before

The full list of breweries is Hook Norton, White Horse, Abingdon’s own Loose Cannon, Oxfordshire Ales, Appleford, Box Steam Brewery, West Berkshire, Wadworth, Festival Brewery from Cheltenham and Vale Brewery.

The festival was officially opened at midday on Saturday by Beth Fleming, chairman of the Vale and Alastair Fear, deputy mayor of Abingdon.

Also this afternoon, members from the Oxford branch of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) members will be giving a tutured tasting demonstration and will be on hand to answer questions about real ale and what CAMRA does.

Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers will be performing on Sunday afternoon starting around 2:30pm and will be followed by a folk music jam session.

The Freedom brewery had a stand on Saturday where you could sample their Hand crafted English Lagers, which if you are only used to the bland mass produced lager brands will surprise you with their aroma, taste and body. The King’s Head and Bell regularly serve Freedom Four

There are other things going on as well including a BBQ serving local farm produce. The banner outside also refers to a local craft market and face painting.

August 28, 2010Permalink 1 Comment

Abingdon Brewed Beer available

After much anticipation over recent months, the Brewery Tap on Ock Street is the first pub to take deliveries of beer from the new Loose Cannon Brewery, Abingdon’s first commercial brewery since the Morland Brewery was closed 10 years ago.

The pub will be serving two beers: Abingdon Bridge Trial 1 and Abingdon Bridge Trial 2. The beer is currently settling, and should be ready to serve on Wednesday. A discount on these beers will be offered to CAMRA members on presentation of your membership card.

The brewer is looking for informed opinions of the two brews.

The Brewery Tap in Abingdon, is one the five contenders for the CAMRA Oxford Branch’s Town and Country pub of the year. More information can be found in the August issue of The Oxford Drinker, which you can pick up in most good pubs in town, or as a PDF on the Oxford CAMRA web site. To vote for the pub of the year you must visit each of the 5 pubs and get a form stamped, and return to Oxford CAMRA with your vote. The forms can be picked up in any of the 5 pubs. The other pubs are The Eagle in Witney. Cricketer’s Arms in Littleworth, Queen’s Head in Eynsham and The Morris Clown in Bampton.

August 10, 2010Permalink Leave a comment

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.

July 12, 2010Permalink Leave a comment

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.

June 24, 2010Permalink Leave a comment

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.

May 26, 2010Permalink Leave a comment