BIS021 - Golden Ale

Pours clear and golden in colour with a snowy white head. Sweet and delicately malty at first, with Maris Otter and Cara Gold providing the perfect base to showcase the floral, slightly earthy, orange-grapefruit hop aroma. Mouthfeel is smooth with the characteristic soft Champagne-style bubbles of bottle conditioning. Then comes the balancing bitterness and you’re lining up your next sip with the crisp, dry finish still lingering in your mouth. 

What The Hell Were We Thinking?

This beer was conceived as a cask ale; the entire first batch was filled into casks and destined to be served in pubs. Of course, we all know what happened there and only two of those casks left the brewery before lockdown. We did manage to sell all the beer though, and the popularity of the Bag In A Box version clearly demonstrated firstly that the style remains hugely popular and also that our recipe really worked.

Golden Ale was the UK’s first ‘craft beer’ style - discuss! It was (probably) the first British style to tip the balance firmly towards hops, and as it evolved it naturally became the ideal way to showcase the bigger, more muscular varieties arriving from Europe and the US. Beers such as Summer Lightning, Hop Head, Brewer’s Gold and Bitter & Twisted all achieved great acclaim and helped to change the face of British Brewing; and are all part of the inspiration behind our Golden Ale.

We knew that for this beer we had to turn to US hops, which up to that point we’d been deliberately avoiding. A Golden Ale has to have full-flavoured, easy drinkability and a works-for-everyone quality. Centennial is a great hop for this beer; with parentage including Fuggle and East Kent Golding it reflects the evolution of the British pint, and the earthy and floral notes work perfectly with the orange-citrus of Amarillo.

A touch of Crystal malt is appropriate and its inclusion here is what gives the beer the authentic cask ale feel, placing you firmly at the bar in thirsty anticipation as the handpull scooshes the foaming liquid into the pint glass.

For the bottled version we’ve added an extra dose of Amarillo in dry hop form, to account for the higher carbonation. The keg and cask versions are deliberately not dry hopped.

Naturally carbonated, vegan friendly