Three new ales from the Arran Brewery

Arran has launched three new brands: Arran ID an Indian dark ale, Arran Sleeping Warrior a barley wine, and Arran Clyde Puffer Special Reserve a stout matured in an Arran whisky cask.

The brands have been bottled after successful test marketing in cask ale format.

Managing director Gerald Michaluk says: “These are three exciting new brands, although designed for the export market they have been released in the UK after quite spectacular market testing in which they scored particularly highly.

"The ID is a dark, hoppy beer in the style of an dark Indian pale ale, but because we feel 'dark' and 'pale ale' are contradictory terms we have simply called it Arran ID.  It has a particularly spooky label and we we adopted it as our Halloween Beer and we will be matching it against Wychwood (Marston’s) King Goblin brand which is a similar 6%abv.

"The Sleeping Warrior was designed as a 'vintage Ale' suitable for aging at a high 8.4%abv this is a niche but growing market mainly in Belgium and the US. It is rich, well rounded and strong just what you need for a cold winters night in Scotland.

"Our Clyde Puffer is a traditional oatmeal stout, originally designed to work with the Guinness surger technology, but has proven it can balance the oak flavours imparted from the whisky casks with a malt richness. This beer will only get better in bottle and has a more sensible ABV of 4.5%.”

The Arran Brewery launched a fourth beer called The King’s Cave which went well in cask but did not make the grade for bottling. It ironically had the catch line “If at first you don’t succeed try, try again”. It was named after the Kings’s cave on Arran where Robert the Bruce is reported to have met with the spider that inspired him and led to Bannockburn. It was not intended to have any current political significance but it was turned out it may have.

19 November 2014 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor