I’ve broken my silence. Been a nutty start to the year and beer free for 2 weeks then #Banuary failed and I fell off the wagon. But I did try! Anyway Marston’s is experimenting with 12 new beers this year: one on sale each month and each one with a totally different hop in it, with every beer being a nice and gentle 4% ABV.   There are plenty of brewers who’ve made a beer with just one hop, but I don’t recall anyone else doing this in terms of spreading the hop love across the entire year and changing each month. If you know different, let me know!

The trend for trying out new hops has been growing apace these last few years, with plenty of new world hop fans around it seems this more traditional brewer wants to see how it will go down with fans of their existing beers as well as trying to attract new fans.  And let’s face it there are some mad crazy hops out there: with wonderful fruity aromas which lend surprising flavours to beers brewed by Brits and non-Brits alike: innovation & delighting drinkers being the name of the game.

So this year in their speciality range you’ll find some Wai-iti and Kohatu hops (from New Zealand), some Galaxy hops (Australia), Marynka from Poland, Strisselspalt from France, Citra from the USA and YES there’s an English East Kent Goldings in there too! Not forgetting our British hops! That would never do!!

Some of the hops were sourced by my fab friend Paul Corbett from top hop merchants, Charles Faram in Worcestershire (Paul’s co-hosting another one of my parties in Brum soon!) and the hops were then selected by Marston’s Brewing Director, Richard Westwood.

So here’s added Beer Beauty bloggy-bonus for you – here’s an interview I did with Richard in early December about the why’s and wherefores of this new thang! Have a LISTEN HERE!

You might remember I’m the sweet, dark beer queen and so I’m not a massive fan of anything that smacks me too much in the face in terms of extraordinarily spicy bitterness in a beer, so I’m cautious but still very interested in checking out each one of Marston’s little beauties. I’m aiming to get to an event in Central London soon where the first three beers will be up for tasting. For what it’s worth, I’ll dole out my verdict as soon as I can muster.

The beers go on sale in Marston’s pubs and inns on cask only on a limited run, so I hope you’ve managed to get hold of the January beer already!

FULL LIST OF BEERS AND HOPS

January – Wai-ti from New Zealand, with an aroma of mandarin, lemon and lime zest.

February – Galaxy from Australia, with an aroma of passionfruit and citrus

March – East Kent Golding, from England, with an aroma of spices, honey and caramel

April – Hallertau Mittelfruh, from Germany, with a floral, grassy, herbal aroma

May – Cascade, from the US, with an aroma of grapefruit, lychee and peach

June – Marynka, from Poland, with a herbal, berry fruit and floral aroma

July – Styrian, from Slovenia, with an aroma of lemon, citrus and perfume

August – Strisselpalt, from France, with a delicate floral and herbal aroma

September – Nelson Savin from New Zealand, with an aroma of gooseberry, grapefruit and citrus

October – Citra from the US, with an aroma of tropical fruit, mango and lime

November – Kohatu from New Zealand, with a floral pine and tropical fruit aroma

December – Saaz from the Czech Republic, lightly floral with an earthy and cinnamon aroma