CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2024: The new Chelmsford pubs named among the country's best in CAMRA beer guide

Voodoo Keller Bar in Chelmsford is one of a number of new Essex pubs who have made it into CAMRA's Good Beer Guide for 2025
-Credit: (Image: Voodoo Keller Bar)


Essex has plenty of brilliant pubs, bars and restaurants to visit for a bite to eat or tipple to drink. If you're looking for somewhere new to visit then the Good Beer Guide for 2025 has plenty of suggestions.

The Campaign for Real Ale's (CAMRA) yearly guide highlights some of the best public houses from across the UK. This year there are almost 500 pubs from across Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

It includes 110 entries from Essex of which 19 are brand new options to try out. It proves that despite a tough trading environment there continues to be a strong industry for pubs in Essex.

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The guide features a number of pubs from across the county and this year's edition even includes a venue where drinkers can booze away where prisoners used to be held in cells. Voodoo Keller Bar is one of the two new additions to the Good Beer Guide 2025 in Chelmsford alongside the Ivory Peg which is part of the Wetherspoons chain.

Voodoo on New Street was originally the holding cell for when Shire Hall operated as a magistrates' court. Now though it's split into three areas with spaces for drinking, dancing and live music. The hidden tunnel that used to connect the cells with the court, whilst blocked off, can even be found in the gents' toilets.

The Ivory Peg, meanwhile, is a single open-plan area at ground level with large windows opening onto New London Road, perfect for those who fancy a drink and some people watching. The pub gained it's name after excavations prior to its building produced an ivory tuning peg from a medieval musical instrument that can now be found in Chelmsford Museum.

A copy of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide for 2025 can be purchased here.