Utopian Brewing has today released their 2023 Festbier, the latest in a range of limited-edition special brews paying homage to classic traditional styles but using only 100% British Grown ingredients.  

Every year the brewery like to add a distinctive feature to the classic Festbier style and this year was no exception.  

As Utopian only brew with British ingredients using German noble hops is usually a non-starter so they were delighted this year to be able to obtain some UK grown Hersbrucker whole cone Noble hops to add to the brew.

Following previous years which have involved complex ‘Augsberg’ mash regimes and heritage Hana malt, this year’s brew uses a traditional double decoction mash with our house lager malt to build a strong bready base with EKG and First Gold followed by the late addition of the Hersbrucker leaf .

Commenting on the brew head brewer Jeremy Swainson said: “Hersbrucker is a classic noble hop and has been used to make lagers for centuries, it’s prized for the subtle aroma it gives to malt forward lagers. It’s a privilege to be able to brew with some of the only Hersbrucker grown in this country and this year’s Festbier is likely our best to date.”

The Hersbrucker hops were grown by Tom Probert in Herefordshire, providing yet another example of how British growers are continuing to push back the boundaries and increase the range of amazing UK hops available to brewers.

The launch of the Festbier comes a week after Utopian released the latest it their celebration of British Pilsners with their Goldings Pils. 

This is a series of small batch brews that showcase British hops in the classic European style.  The Goldings used 100% East Kent Goldings hops with a big dry hop and Jeremy was very satisfied with the outcome commenting

“Many would not associate EKG as a typical lager hop or for big dry hops but the results are amazing with heaps of flavour and aroma complementing the beautiful crisp dry pils base.”

Utopian will continue to use only 100% British grown ingredients as MD Richard Archer explained: “Using home grown ingredients was a first step for us to reduce food miles and our carbon footprint and it is great to see more and more Brewers increasingly following that path. 

“The range of styles and quality of UK hops continues to delight us but the future of UK hops is in our hands as we need more brewers to be brewing with them and not just the UK traditional varieties.  There’s a window to try to redress the reduction in UK Hop acreage and we will continue to bang the drum to try to reverse that trend ”

Next in the British Pilsner series will be the now annual Green Hop Pilsner collaboration brewed with Utopian’s good friend Eddie Gadd at the Ramsgate brewery.  Brewed last week, with another fabulous UK hop,  this beer is due for release in October.