This week’s Sip With Us Saturday beer comes from a unique English craft brewery, Wychwood Brewing Company.  Always appreciative of unique label art, I have to hand it to Wychwood for never failing to dress their bottles up in provocatively dark, yet colorful labels that lend one to believe something interesting is on the inside.

It seems that every brewery has some sort of unique interest that becomes their marketing focal point.  Wychwood is no different, drawing from English folklore.  From the Brewery’s website:

Wychwood Brewery is named after The Royal Forest of Wychwood which was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, and covered much of what is now West Oxfordshire. Much of the artwork for Wychwood beer labels depicts characters from myths and legends associated with the ancient medieval forest.

The term ‘forest’ referred historically to areas where hunting rights were reserved for the Sovereign and included in this area would have been meadows, cultivated open fields, heaths and downs as well as woodlands.

You can just imagine the Hobgoblin trundling past and jeering at The Circle Master as he scamps around the fields looking for trouble.

Fiddler’s Elbow is an English pale that utilizes Styrian and Northdown hops with a malt makeup of Pale wheat and Crystal malt, with an ABV of 4.5%.  Hobgoblin is a tad darker with it’s use of chocolate malt alongside Pale and Crystal.  Hobgoblin uses Fuggles and Styrian malts.

I’d encourage sipping with us this Saturday.  If rarely stray from the American craft beer ales that use more citrusy hops, these beers my be a refreshing trip from the norm.

By the way, Wychwood brewery’s facilities perfectly accommodates my mental picture of what an English Brewery named “Wychwood” would look like.  Cheers!

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