We’ve been busy! At last we’re in production and our beer is now available in a few select hostelries. Don’t worry about the website – that’s all to come. We’re concentrating on producing quality beer first and we’ll get round to making a wizzbang website on the interweb thingy in due course. We’re fed up with IT and puters and all that malarkey and we’re doing the important stuff first.

Our first brew didn’t quite go to plan, we had trouble with the gas burner among other things. As a consequence Nutty Slack turned out less hoppy than we had hoped. At 3.6% it’s a pleasant mild though with a nice nutty after taste.

Our second brew was a whole different story. This is a 4.6% full bodied ale. It’s got a lovely thick head and (we think) it’s got a really good balance of sweetness, hoppy bitterness and malt flavour. The new beer was named in The Dale on one of our important market research expeditions.

A shanker is the bloke who pours the molten metal from the ladle (or shank as it’s known) into the mould in a foundry. Our brewery is housed in an old foundry building in Ironbridge so it seemed apt to name our beer Shankers’ Tipple. I’ve been told that one or two people have already confused the name of the beer with that of a mild skin irritation brought on by vigorous exercise in a string vest but we’ve got the pump clips printed now so we’ll have to stick with it for the time being anyway.

Shankers’ Tipple was launched over the May Day bank holiday weekend and we’re really keen to know what you think of it. Please send email comments to david at ironbridgebrewery dot co dot uk. Please don’t send adverts for potions or medications or any other sort of life enhancing product. I’m only here for the beer. I also don’t need a Rolex and I can’t cash cheques for any estranged Kings of obscure countries in Asia.

Coracle Bitter is a 3.8% bitter with a light copper colour and a good hop character from local (Worcestershire) Boadicea hops. A refreshing drink for the super summer that we’re going to have!

Our latest beer is called ‘1779’ (the year the famous Ironbridge was built). This is a 4.2% dry hopped golden ale. It’s got stacks of flavour and body and a delicious hop character. 1779 is proving to be a very popular addition to our range.

We brew the traditional way using the finest malt and whole hops. We’ve got the best water in Telford too!

If you’re interested in stocking our beer in your pub or club then please send an email to David or better still phone me up at the brewery on 01952 433910. Please feel free to pop in and see us, we’re in Ironbridge on the Merrythought campus and we’re dead proud of our shiny new brewery kit and we love showing it off.

I’ve started a blog for anyone who is interested on keeping up with various ramblings about the brewery, beer, pubs and anything else that comes to mind.

Finally – please don’t buy beer from strangers, get back down the local!