Pints West 92, Winter 2011 - Bristol & District CAMRA

PINTS WEST
BATH & BORDERS BRANCH
News from Blindman’s Brewery
Lloyd Chamberlain of Blindman’s Brewery was delighted to welcome the
constituency MP, David Heath, to Talbot Farm on November 11th. He
came to present the company with a certificate to prove that Buff – one of
the regular beers – had been a guest ale in the Houses of Parliament in April
this year. As the certificate says, it had been much enjoyed by the members
and their visitors. Lloyd took the opportunity to show David around the
brewery, where, in the absence of Paul Edney, the head brewer, who was
moving house that day, Steve Restorick, assistant brewer, explained the
process to him, while Lloyd showed him samples of malt and hops.
As the brewery had just taken delivery of samples of its latest venture,
bottled beers, Lloyd was able to make a presentation in return to his MP of
the first two beers. The trade name of all the beers is going to be Buff, and at
present they have a light Buff, an amber – the usual Buff ‐– and there will be
a dark Buff coming soon. The beers have been cold-filtered, and (somewhat
to my surprise) taste excellent when chilled. The striking labels should make
them an eye-catching sight in shops when they are fully available.
Kirsten Elliott
David Heath MP (centre) with Angela Riley and Steve Restorick of Blindman’s
blindmans
brewery
Award-Winning Real Ales
Brewed with Natural Spring Water
Buff 3.6% Golden Spring 4.0%
Mine Beer 4.2% Icarus 4.5%
Eclipse 4.2% Siberia 4.7%
BLINDMANS BREWERY LTD
Talbot Farm, Leighton, Nr Frome, Somerset BA11 4PN
Tel: 01749 880038
email: info@blindmansbrewery.co.uk
www.blindmansbrewery.co.uk
** ALES ALSO AVAILABLE VIA SIBA DDS **
Bellringer is ringing the bell in Punch pubs
Punch Partnership and Abbey Ales have announced that Abbey Ales
Bellringer will be available to Punch licensees from Carlsberg’s
Nashmead depot.
Bellringer was the first cask beer produced at the Abbey Ales brewery
in Bath and is still the only one continuously brewed. Successfully
launched at the Bath CAMRA beer festival in October 1997, Bellringer
is now the top-selling cask bitter in Bath and is as popular with the many
visitors to the Georgian city as it is with Bathonians.
Alan Morgan, MD of Abbey Ales, said, “Until recently sales had
been restricted to a 15-mile radius of the centre of Bath, but with
demand increasing from further afield, our deal with Punch will allow
more fans of the premium golden brew to enjoy the beer, even outside of
our core trading area.”
Bellringer is a notably hoppy ale, amber-gold in colour, refreshingly
dry, with a balancing sweetness. The beer has won numerous awards,
including ‘Beer of the Festival’ at the Cotswolds CAMRA festival,
the Devizes CAMRA festival and the Bath CAMRA Beer Festival and
featured as a finalist in the Champion Beer of Britain competition. Bath
MP Don Foster was so impressed with Bellringer he arranged for it to be
sold as a guest beer at the House of Commons.
Founded in 1997, Abbey Ales was the first – and is still the only
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– brewery in the heritage city of Bath for over fifty years, and was the
initiative of experienced brewery sales and marketing manager Alan
Morgan.
Meanwhile, Twelfth Night, the latest seasonal beer from Abbey
Ales, has gone on sale. Described as a “delicious winter warmer, ruby
in colour, full of malt flavours”, the beer proved so popular last year
that the brewery has had to work overtime to keep up with the demand
for this 5.0% Christmas special. Alan Morgan said, “Every year we get
requests from Bath landlords from mid October about the date we will
be releasing Twelfth Night and when they can actually get it to sell. Last
year the demand exceeded all expectations. However we are not going
to be caught out again this year and our first brew will be double the
amount brewed last year with another batch to follow. It proved very
popular with visitors to the Bath Christmas market and maybe the cold
weather has helped it become such an excellent winter warmer.”
Twelfth Night should be available in numerous Bath pubs, including,
of course, the brewery’s own ‘Abbey Inns’ chain of pubs comprising
the Star Inn on the Paragon, the Assembly Inn on Alfred Street and
arguably Bath’s smallest pub, the Coeur de Lion in the city centre.
SP