Anglian Craft Brewers

Anglian Craft Brewers (ACB) are a proactive homebrew club in the East Anglia region, of the United Kingdom. Membership is free, and consists of keen amateur and professional brewers. ACB members regularly meet on the first Saturday of the month and 3rd Wednesday in Essex and Suffolk.

The ACB is a volunteer organisation with a rich history. Read this blog for more on the history of the Anglian Craft Brewers club.

Anglian Craft Brewers Logo
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Club aims:

  • Offer a relaxed environment for brewers to explore and meet like-minded people
  • Further the development of craft brewing by information sharing and meeting up
  • Inform and educate each other to drive collective improvement and development 
  • Provide mutual support and friendship
  • Help beginners progress and develop
  • Cover all forms of brewing, from kits to all-grain: beer is beer
  • Aim to provide constructive feedback on beers sampled at meetings
  • Celebrate great beer
  • Help brewers to understand beer off flavours and advise how to avoid them
  • Organise interesting and useful events online and in person (see events)
  • Recommend the best suppliers and most useful brewing related material

ACB aims to keep the region’s brewers in touch with each other. This is achieved using this website and various other chat groups, to share ideas and learn from each other.

ACB aim to meet regionally on the first Saturday of the month in various locations, so everyone has the opportunity to attend a local meeting at least once a quarter.

If you are interested in joining, please feel free to contact us or register for an account. All are welcome.

Meetings

We aim to meet on the first Saturday of each month, alternating between Essex and Suffolk. Area meetings are usually held in locations easily reached from the main London to Norwich railway line. We use local knowledge to select the best pubs with great food and an awesome selection of craft beer and cask conditioned real ale. Saturday meetings are agenda led, when possible we arrange talks from local breweries and beer clone recipes. There is always an any other beer (AOB) section for brewers to offer up their latest beers for feedback. These are valuable opportunities to help you get feedback and help you to develop your own recipes.

Each region usually has a monthly mid-week meeting as well.

For more information on all upcoming events, check the dedicated Events Page

Club Structure

Anglian Craft Brewers is made up of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk area brewers groups. We align, freely move between, regularly communicate and share information, and attend meetings with Cambridge Amateur Craft Brewers (CACB) and Norwich Amateur Brewers (NAB).

If you live in the Anglia region, you’ll have a club near you.

Communication

We stay in touch using a multitude of digital methods, including: email, social media (Facebook & Twitter) WhatsApp groups and Slack. 

Regional organisers and committees organise regular monthly Saturday ACB and mid-week regional meetings across the region. Mid-week meetings are usually held on teh 3rd Wednesday of the month in Essex (Chelmsford/Colchester) and Suffolk (Ipswich). For information on Norwich and Cambridge meets, refer to their websites.

Beer Tastings and Club Competitions

We hold beer tastings at monthly and mid-week meetings. Club competitions are held quarterly, typically clone recipes against popular commercial examples. We also run an annual homebrew competition.

We also run online bottle swaps, challenging homebrew clubs all over the UK to online bottle swaps. Brewers are allocated BLCP beer styles to brew, and the group compare them in weekly video meetings. 3 bottles are also allocated to judging. The beers are scored for the final week’s unveiling. Online meetings are a great practice for anyone wanting to improve their beer tasting skills. They’re perfect for meeting brewers from all over the UK. They give you familiarity so you recognise brewers when you visit homebrew competitions.

Annual Festivals

Anglian Craft Breweries hold two annual festivals: Shed Brewer’s Festival and the ACB Homebrew Competition. These are both heavily volunteer based. We rely on the support of brewers for help to brew beers to serve at the Shed Festival. We rely on interested brewers to qualify as BJCP judges to judge at our competition and provide feedback, and help to steward. Without everyone, these annual events can’t happen.

Festival History

The original festival is the annual “Shed Brewers Festival”, traditionally held at the Victoria Inn, Colchester, on the first Saturday in November. 

A more recent addition is the popular Norwich Amateur Brewer Festival, held in June, at the Coachmakers Arms, Norwich. Both events are ticketed. We also have a strong showing at the Briarbank homebrew competition in Ipswich.

The first annual Anglian Craft Brewers “ACB Homebrew Competition” was held at the Royal British Legion, Wivenhoe. The event was a great success and more will follow, as soon as we can get back to them.