Among the many bottles and barrels at Brentwood Brewery, members of Ongar Art Society found inspiration for some sketching practise, transforming the brewery into a temporary art studio one Saturday morning recently.

The society’s membership secretary, Nicola Rhodes, said: “We like to go to different places on sketch days. In the past we’ve been to Greensted Church, Epping & Ongar Railway, Hylands Park and very often we go to our members’ gardens. It’s the first time we’ve been to the brewery.

“It’s good because it really gets you looking at different shapes and textures and you’re practising your skills”

The brewery environment certainly provided the group with some different and interesting, if somewhat challenging, subject matter to work with. All the artists agreed that beer barrels were the trickiest of shapes to tackle.

Ongar Art Society Chairman Beverley Hughes said: “New members are always welcome. You don’t have to be an artist to join, you just need to have an interest in art and some enthusiasm. Our members have a wide range of artistic experience and backgrounds.”

Relaxing in The Tap Room

After toiling over their sketchbooks, some members of the group relaxed in the brewery’s onsite Tap Room, sampling some Brentwood-brewed, draught BBC1 which is just 1.5% ABV but just as flavoursome as higher ABV beers.

Brewery MD Roland Kannor said: “We’re proud to serve, help and play an active part in our community. In the dozen years we’ve been trading we always aim to help the local community where we can.

“Whilst it’s always a pleasure to be of assistance, we always end up having fun and enjoying ourselves at the same time.”

We would like to thank all the artists (Nicola, Beverley, Loueen Morrison, Hugh Rayner and Fred Ambrose) who kindly allowed their work to be photographed and shared with our beer fans and readers of the brewery’s monthly newsletter The Beery News. Thanks also go to Hugh Rayner from Blackmore for donating his pencil sketch to the brewery.

The brewery and our Tap Room are open six days a week. See our home page for opening times, more details about the brewery or to sign up for The Beery News (www.brentwoodbrewing.co.uk).

Ongar Art Society

Ongar Art Society meets regularly on the second Thursday evening of each month (except August) at High Ongar Village Hall. The group is holding its Winter Art Sale at The Budworth Hall in Ongar on Saturday 10th November.

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