Our most unusual beer to date and a bit of a rant!

We're not really ones to go out on a limb; Gazza doesn't take kindly to the all-pervasive attitude currently sweeping the UK beer scene which has presumably slunk into the country hidden in some container from the states, which means that rather than brewing good-quality beer with lots of flavour and drinkability brewers seem to think they have to, for want of a better phrase, "fanny about" with beer making it some or all of the following;

• strong/weak
• sour
• with spices / fruit
• tongue-blasting flavour
• calling beers "imperial" (whatever that is)
• using crystal malt in IPAs when, using UK malt, we don't need it
• barrel aged
• ludicrous made-up style carcrashes which don't work

..... and many more I don't even want to think about!

Now in the US this kind of thing is positively encouraged as the drinking culture is different and people expect more "bang for their buck" and for craft beer to taste approximately 200000% more than Bud or Coors... but here?  Really? We can brew, I'd say, the best sub-5% hoppy beers in the world yet brewers are rushing headlong into a knob-waving contest to see who can make the most undrinkable beers; 11% barrel-aged sour IPA anyone?  Yeah, I can see that going down well on handpump, there'll be a queue of customers drinking pints of that...

Not that I've got a problem with these beers, I actually enjoy some of them, it's more that some brewers concentrate on them rather than sorting out their regular beers first... but hey, what's all this ranting to do with our most unusual beer you ask?

Well, feeling a bit left out, I thought we'd unashamedly jump on this bandwagon and brew something... well, a little more "awesome" to use the proper craft beer terminology, and so - after discussions with various people but mainly Julie Thomas - Ryevolution RPA was born!  It's made with pale Rye malt, Maris Otter barley malt, a touch of Wheat and a smidgeon of Belgian Aroma malt (which tastes like well-done toast!), mainly Brewer's Gold hops, plus a whole aisle-full of orange, clementine and red grapefruit zest and juice and even some caraway seeds seeing as they go so well with Rye!

So, as you can see, we've well and truly embraced craft brewing with this one; it's not been tasted properly as yet but we are hoping for something well worth the effort involved!