Shepherd Neame’s renowned Master Brew has a new look, celebrating its heritage as The Original Kentish Ale: the only UK beer style protected by the EU.
The beer’s signature green remains, but it’s now offset with a more subtle silver and cream colour palette and clearer fonts. The new-look metal pump clip and bottle label include a photograph from 1905 of hop pickers at Shepherd Neame’s hop farm Queen Court. Thousands of families from London enjoyed annual ‘hopping’ holidays to the Kent countryside until the mid-20th century – a tradition that continues to be celebrated at the town’s annual Hop Festival.
The design also references Faversham as the Home of the Hop, acknowledging the town’s position as a world-centre for hop growing. Some of the UK’s first hop gardens are thought to have been planted in the area, in particular Homestall Farm in 1590 as referenced in a plan at the Kent History Library Centre. Today, Kent is one of only two major hop growing regions in Britain. Queen Court Farm hosts the National Hop Collection, a living archive of historic hop varieties which play a vital role in research and breeding programmes and attract interest from breweries across the world.
KENTISH ALE
Shepherd Neame is the only brewer in the UK able to call its beer ‘Kentish Ale’, a style of beer which is afforded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) from the European Union. It is characterised by a low level of sweetness and a dry, slightly astringent and peppery hop character when paired with the brewer’s unique ale yeast.
Master Brew is brewed in the UK’s last remaining solid oak mash tuns using the finest quality British pale ale, crystal and brown malted barley. In accordance with its PGI, it uses chalk-filtered mineral water from the artesian well deep beneath the brewery and is bittered with archetypal Kentish hops Admiral and Target, with later hopping from Goldings for aroma.
TASTING NOTES
From three-time Beer Writer of the Year, Ben McFarland:
Delicate and devilishly drinkable, this quintessentially Kentish ale lays the county’s hallowed, herbaceous hops on a firm, biscuity bed of pale and crystal malt. Endowed with an inviting auburn-amber hue and a tantalising toffee-ish aroma, it’s an enlivening English ale that, given its unassuming ABV, pleasures the palate with a remarkable fullness of flavour.
The beer is available on cask and in 500ml bottles (at 3.7% and 4% abv respectively) across pub, bars and off licences across the South East.
