Product Launch - ONLINE: Hall & Woodhouse's Badger Ales Collector's Edition 2012

Badger Ales, one of the UK’s leading premium bottled ales, has launched the first of its ultimate collector’s ales series. To celebrate the number of years Hall & Woodhouse has been brewing, 235 bottles of the Collector’s Edition 2012 have been released, each bottle hand-numbered and signed by Chairman Mark Woodhouse, and housed in a beautiful wooden presentation box.

The base ale of the Collector’s Edition 2012 uses generous proportions of specialist malts to build flavour. The Crystal malt gives both a fullness and biscuit body to the ale and the Aromatic malt provides the moreish character which lengthens and adds complexity in the mouth. Boadicea was used as the bittering hop at the start of the boil, with Target added five minutes before the end and Bramling Cross on the cast from the copper providing the bulk of the hop notes. The fermenter was then further infused with Goldings. Finally, the ale was matured in a Somerset Cider Brandy Company oak cask, where a second fermentation took place before being bottled into champagne bottles to allow for a further tertiary fermentation, riddling and disgorging.

Head Brewer at Badger, Toby Heasman, said: “Following the opening of our new brewery I was inspired to create a collector’s ale series, all of which will be suitable to drink immediately or can be laid down for many years. This 10.7% ale is one of the first ales produced in the UK to undergo three fermentations as well as full riddling and disgorging, which is normally only carried out by the finest Champagne houses. The Collector’s Edition 2012 is the first in the series which will be released annually. It is a complex beer that is dangerously drinkable. I would serve it either as an appetizer or end of evening beer to accompany cheese.”

The Collector’s Edition 2012 will only be exclusively available from www.badgerdirect.com and will retail at £50.00 plus postage and packaging from 26 November 2012.

Background information: 

Hall & Woodhouse has been brewing Badger ales in the heart of the Dorset countryside since 1777. As one of the leading independent brewers in the UK, Hall & Woodhouse is well known for its range of award-winning ales brewed under the Badger brand and its network of public houses throughout the South of England.  2012 has been a year of celebration for the company; Head Brewer, Toby Heasman has been awarded Brewer of the Year by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group and Hall & Woodhouse was awarded The Best Tenanted/Lease Pub Company (10-199 pubs) in the Publican Awards.  In addition, the Company’s new brew house was officially opened in June, continuing the legacy and securing the future of brewing in Blandford, Dorset for the next 100 years. The Brewery, which is now managed by the fifth generation of the Woodhouse family, is justifiably proud of the quality of its ales which are brewed with Dorset spring water filtered through the Cretaceous chalk downs and drawn up 120 feet from the Brewery’s own wells.

Original source: Company Release