And back for the third and final day of Beer Con 2026, the sun was sort of shining and I was ready for my two final volunteering shifts.
I was back on the cask and cider bar, being pleased to be put with the wonderful Chris who is one of those responsible for the Curiosity Bar at Norwich Beer Festival. I’m an advocate of increasing their budget, but organiser Craig will just comment that I only like beer that doesn’t taste of beer again….
We were near the band, and I’d better add that they weren’t unpopular, I took this photo whilst they were doing their warm-ups or whatever the musical term is. Fortunately, the music wasn’t too loud as I’m now over 20 and I didn’t like too much frivolity.
For the second session, I was initially at the Beak and Weekend Project, both fine breweries. At the start of proceedings many of the brewers were here themselves, but they weren’t all here on the Saturday night.
The view from behind the counter soon after opening. I like serving keg, although I didn’t do it for long… Incidentally, there’s plenty to this whole Beer Con event, there were talks taking place, entertainment and other things to surprise and delight visitors.
And that was because I was given the exciting promotion (well, I think that it was a promotion) of being on the Old Man Joe’s bar, which had a selection of cask ales, soft drinks and is the area where the snacks were. What could possibly go wrong?
Fair play to the organisers Boom Tower, there’s a real attention to detail in setting up this little traditional pub area. Setting this whole arrangement up across the two floors must have taken some time, but the organisers really thought about adding character to everything.
I popped down to check that Roy and Jen weren’t arguing, but they were focused on chatting to their VIP customer. Note Roy and Jen felt it better to be at the end of their counter section to avoid any disputes.
Roy had created badges so that I was there in spirit 🙂 Looking forwards to the 2026 Norwich Beer Festival!
Roy came to see me anyway to help test some of the cask beers and to check how well I was managing.
After getting muddled up and going to the White Lion and Artichoke again after the end of Beer Con, I discovered that the Black Stars were in the Artichoke practising for our game in a few weeks. Here’s Gabriel, the hero of the practice last week, showing Dave some of his shots.
And then I got muddled up once again and went to the King’s Head.