THE St Andrews Brewing Company has been chosen by the BrewDog St Andrews team for their CollabFest 2019 festival of collaborative brewing.
The beers were launched simultaneously yesterday across the UK Brewdog bar estate, as well as in several continental BrewDog bars.
One 20 litre keg was sent to each of the British bars and several made their away to the overseas establishments.
The St Andrews beer is called Hippophae Fife; a Sea Buckthorn IPA 6.2%.
Sea Buckthorn is a superfood made famous by a top Danish chef.
It is also an invasive weed, an incredible source of Vitamin C and is widely used by golf course designers who plant it to stabilise the dunes and provide a wind break on links courses. It also grows in abundance around St Andrews and Fife.
There is also something of a story in how the beer came to be named Hippophae.
According to Brewdog, the ancient Greeks fed Sea Buckthorn to their horses to give them a silky coat.
Hippo is the ancient Greek for horse; think of Philippos – the lover of horses – or hippopotamus, the river horse.
BrewDog owner Tim Butler, said: “Not wanting to attract undue attention from the Portman group, but I can’t wait for my shiny mane and resilience to winter colds.”
He said sour beers and sour IPAs are in demand at the moment, and the natural tartness of the berries is the most obvious flavour.
Secondary flavours are star fruit, unripe mango and hints of pineapple.
“Like all St Andrews Brewing Co beers, it is really well balanced,” said Butler.
“It is incredibly refreshing and there is a nice viscosity from the berries.
The international BrewDog Bars who are currently serving Hippophae and in Barcelona, Brussels, the Dogtap in Berlin and St Pauli in Hamburg.
It can also be found in Budapest, Oslo, Malmo, Sodermalm in Stockholm, Norrkoping, Nice, Paris, Reykjavik and Tallinn.
Company bars at Castlegate, in Aberdeen, Lothian Road in Edinburgh, Glasgow’s Merchant City, Dundee, Inverurie and, of course, St Andrews, are where you’ll find it being served in Scotland.
They are joined by Shoreditch, Tower Hill, Canary Wharf, Camden, Paddington, Shepherds Bush, Brixton, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Carlisle, Leicester, Liverpool, Norwich, Oxford, Reading and Southampton.
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