The Beer of the Festival at Dulwich this year, as voted for by the customers, was Leigh-on-Sea Brewery’s fantastic SS9 Imperial Stout. At a hefty 9% ABV, it’s packed with notes of coffee and chocolate. This great beer takes its name from the post code for Leigh-on-Sea.
In September, members and friends from CAMRA’s South East London branch thought they would pop down to the brewery to deliver the award in person. This involved a train to Rayleigh, then a bus and a short walk; not a bad run out on a Saturday morning. Sadly, the winning brew was not available on the occasion of our visit but I did well, sampling on cask a very nice sessionable 3.4% ABV Bawley Pale bitter followed by Mayflower Best Bitter (4% ABV) and then their Castle Black nitro stout on keg (3.9% ABV). All were ably served by bar managers Sandra and Derek Willbourne. Other beers were also available! The brewery was founded in 2017 by Ian Rydings and Mark Springham, and they’ve produced a number of SIBA award-winning brews.
In Rayleigh on the way back to the station, we also visited the rather nice Crafty Casks Taproom. There were more awesome beers to be sampled here, too. Worth a visit if you’re in the area.
Essex has quite a few local breweries; check out Essex Breweries, Essex Real Ale and the CAMRA Branch websites. Two well-established names with taprooms are Wibblers (whose award winning Dengie IPA and Dengie Gold beers are particular favourites of mine) and Crouch Vale. Their Amarillo is another of my go-to beers and, given that it won CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain in 2024, clearly a few other folks think it is good too.
With thanks to Brian Fretwell for the photo.
Maria Freeman