Bristol Vintage 2011

BRISTOL VINTAGE 2011, is a beer we have created to celebrate the 1000th brew in our brewery. You can buy it here. It only seemed right to celebrate this milestone with an extra special beer. MD, Simon Bartlett, along with brewers Chris Kay and Brett Ellis have carefully selected 5 malts and 4 of our favourite hop varieties to make a full flavoured strong dark ale. After fermentation the beer was aged on some fresh English Oak to add another layer of complexity to it.


BRISTOL VINTAGE will be available in both casks and as a bottle-conditioned beer. Casks are available now... bottles to follow in a couple of weeks.


An extra special brew day was required to produce the amount of beer we wanted to get, Simon starting the brew day off at 1am, and Chris finishing the day at gone 9pm. 3 mashes were required to produce the 6000 pints we wanted. Hops were selected from England, Germany, New Zealand and the US that all bring something different to the beer, and lead to a distinctive hop presence that compliments the malts and balances the beer.


Tasting notes;
A very dark beer with a slight red hue to it, there is a sweet aroma of raspberries. It is a rich, full-bodied beer, with berry fruits to the fore and with chocolate and toasted notes. The finish lingers with a nice hint of oak and moreish hop bitterness.


Bristol Vintage is delicious fresh, with the hop characters really prevalent, however it will age really well, developing flavour and complexity as the hop flavours diminish and the strong malt backbone of the beer takes over. Try it fresh, but also put a bottle away for months or years into the future.


A unique, one and done beer, but hopefully the first of an annual release of a Bristol Vintage.