A HISTORIC fort was filled with food and real ale at a weekend-long beer festival.

Beer-lovers crossed the moat to the Redoubt Fort in Main Road, Dovercourt for the annual festival from Thursday to Sunday.

The hugely popular event saw more than 60 real ales and 20 ciders on offer as well as eight craft keg beers, Belgian bottles, and draught cherry and strawberry beers.

Run by the Harwich Brewing Company, the festival is in its eighth year and attracts more than 1,000 people to the Napoleonic fort over the weekend.

Paul Mellor, organiser, said: “We had 850 people come along.

"Saturday lunchtime was our best lunchtime ever.

"We sold 3,000 pints of ale, 500 pints of cider and 400 pints of keg beer.

"The strawberry and cherry beers were as popular as every - we sold about 400 pints of those."

The weekend also saw live music from East Creek Union Band who play traditional American Folk music, singer-songwriter Polly Haynes as well as morris dancing.

Mr Mellor added: "The two live bands went down a storm and we had the Annie's Fantasies Clog Morris Team from Colchester who really enjoyed themselves.

"It's a lot of hard work but we've never stopped enjoying the festival.

"It was a great weekend as ever and we look forward to doing it all again next year."