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Dec 2013

Crowning Glory, Tring Brewery

Added: Sunday, December 1st 2013

Style Extra Strong Bitter ABV 6.6%

Tring Crowning Glory (6.5%)

Tring is a long-established small brewery, opened in 1992 in the Hertfordshire town of the same name. It was founded by Richard Shardlow, a vastly experienced brewer who had worked for Greene King, Ruddles and Devenish. He was joined in 2000 by Andrew Jackson, who had worked for Whitbread on the sales side and he rapidly expanded Tring’s base.

In 2010, the brewery moved from a cramped site near the town centre and is now based on Dunsley Farm, part of the Rothschild estate, on the edge of Tring. It’s best-known for its Side Pocket for a Toad cask beer.

Crowning Glory is Tring’s first bottle-conditioned beer and is the result of collaboration with the film director Edgar Wright. Wright wanted a special beer for his film World’s End, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, which features an epic pub crawl in the Hertfordshire area, including the Ashridge Estate. The participants drink a beer called Crowning Glory in one pub: the cask version was 14.2% and the beer has been scaled down for its appearance in bottle.

The beer is brewed with Maris Otter pale malt with caramalt, crystal malt and wheat. It's hopped with Cascades for both aroma and bitterness. I occasionally wonder where the yeast is in some bottle-conditioned beers but when I removed the cap the small slick of yeast in the neck left no doubt about its method of production. It has a hazy bronze colour topped by a billowing head of foam. There are spicy hops, toasted malt, caramel and bitter orange fruit on the aroma. Tangy fruit builds in the mouth balanced by nutty malt, caramel, and spicy and bitter hops. Hop bitterness grows in the finish with strong notes of orange fruit, caramel and creamy malt. It ends dry, fruity and bitter.

£3 for a bottle. Tring Brewery has a shop on site at Dunsley Farm, London Road, Tring, Herts HP23 6HA: 01442 809721; www.tringbrewery.co.uk. The Beer Shop in St Albans, run in association with Tring Brewery, also sells the beer with online sales available: 71 London Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 1LN; 01727 568030; www.beershopstalbans.com.

Crowning Glory, Tring Brewery