Brecon County Ale has won the gold medal in the Bitters Class for the third year running and Golden Valley was the joint winner of the Best Bitters Class for the second year in sucession. Ramblers Ruin was also a finalist in the competition, but lost out to the overall winner, Bullmastiff Son of a Bitch.

One of Wales’s newest breweries, the award winning Breconshire Brewery, has teamed up with the UK’s oldest agricultural society to toast the importance of Welsh farming. Head brewer, Justin "Buster" Grant, is launching Brecknock Best, brewed in the style of a Best Bitter, to mark the 250th anniversary of the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society.

“I’m delighted to be able to dedicate our new seasonal beer to the Brecknockshire Agricultural.Society”, says Justin. “There’s a long and happy association between beer and farming and at the Breconshire Brewery we use malted barley from West Wales.
“We use English hops, but we’d love to use Welsh if we could persuade someone to produce them for us. It’s great to be able to mark such an important event as the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society’s 250th anniversary and we look forward to supplying lots of pints on show day”.

Beer drinkers will appreciate that, with an abv of 4.5%, the Brecknock Best has a floral nose and ‘a distinctive hoppy taste to compliment’. Its malty sweetness is said to give way to a pleasant astringency derived from the Pilot and Bramling Cross hops. The hoppy bitterness persists into the aftertaste to provide a refreshing zing and a distinct moorishness.

Looking forward to sampling the new beer is Show Chairman, Charles de Winton. He is delighted with the initiative and feels it’s yet another extension of the work begun so long ago by the Society’s founding fathers.

“Local landowners Penry Williams and Charles Powell were determined to alleviate the terrible poverty in the countryside”, he says. “They did all they could to innovate and improve. And they sought to add value to agricultural produce.

“I’m not sure what they’d have thought of the beer. The Brecknockshire Agricultural Society evolved from the old Hunting Club and when members realised ‘it was impossible to do business when drunk’ they refrained from drinking during the meetings!”

The new beer carries the crest of the Society on the pump clip, and casks of the beer will be available in pubs throughout Mid, South and West Wales, and possibly even further afield. The Brewery was set up in 2002 by Howard Marlow of Brecon-based wholesaler and distributors C.H.Marlow. Since then the brewery has won a number of awards including the CAMRA Champion Beer of Wales award for its Golden Valley - this award was recently presented at a ceremony in the Welsh Assembly.

HRH Prince of Wales is Patron of the Society and is taking a keen interest in the celebrations. The Society has also commissioned the Institute of Welsh Affairs to produce a report, The Future of Upland Wales, to mark the anniversary.

The beer is available now and will be until after the Brecon County Show in August.

For more details please call the Brewery on 01874 623 731

Winter is coming, and with it, a welcome return for the Breconshire Brewery’s warming Winter Ale : Winter Beacon. This 5.3% abv beer has been described as “As pale as the winter’s Sun over the Beacons, but with the welcoming warming of glow of the fireside after a long walk in the hills”… This beer will be available from mid-November onwards.

A new special beer will flow out of the Breconshire Brewery at the end of October. Given the nights are closing in, and fire festivals are approaching, Head Brewer Buster Grant has decided to mark the celebrations with a new beer - Night Beacon. The 4.9% abv stout will be made with a small proportion of peated malt (as used by Scottish malt whisky distillers) to provide a undertone of warming smokiness to this dark brew. More information will be available closer to the time….

The season for Welsh Beer Festivals starts soon, and the Breconshire Brewery will be involved in these once again. Our beers will be available at the Eco-Festival in Boncath West Wales over the weekend of 11th and 12th of September. The Following weekend sees a new Beer Festival hosted by Gwent CAMRA at the the Abergavenny Food Festival - Look out for the Green Dragon there! The weekend after that (24th-26th September) sees us at another new Beer Festival, this time at the Narberth Food Festival. The following weekend (1st- 3rd October) is the date for the Carmarthen CAMRA Beer Festival, in Notts Hall in the centre of Carmarthen. This popular event was extremely successful last year, and Golden Valley carried off the title of Beer of the Festival. The biggest beer festival in Wales takes place the following weekend, (7th-9th October), in Cardiff. Once again, the City Hall plays host to the CAMRA Great Welsh Beer and Cider Festival, which is also the venue for the judging of the prestigeous CAMRA Champion Beer of Wales Competition. Last year we managed to win a gold medal for the Brecon County Ale, (also 4th overall), and both Golden Valley and Ramblers Ruin won silver medals. We’re hoping to better those results this year! Watch this space…

Following various reports in trade and national press, we are proud to announce that the Welsh Assembly building is no longer a Real Ale Desert! Following the intervention of David Davies, the leader of the Assembly Beer Group, (with a little addional help from Head Brewer Justin “Buster” Grant!), Assembly members can now enjoy Bottle Conditioned Golden Valley in the Assembly Bar. Other beers will be available soon, and occasionally, draft ale will be at the bar as well…