Special brew with trans-Atlantic taste in Arundel

Samantha Walker, managing director of Arundel Brewery, with her fellow director and brother-in-law, Neil

The brewery, based at Ford, has teamed up with the Wild Heaven Brewery in Atlanta, Georgia, enabling a very special American-style pale ale to be brewed here in West Sussex.

The two breweries exchanged recipes and the first brew of the US firm’s Let There Be Light beer was soon bubbling away in Arundel as a ten-barrel pilot run. The recipe meant Arundel Brewery had to order in two rare hops, one from Japan and the other from New Zealand.

The ale has been named Wild Heaven, after the American business which created it, and it has been offered initially to members of Arundel Brewery’s beer club members, before becoming more widely available.

Since it was taken over by the Walker family little more than a year ago, Arundel Brewery has been spreading its wings and the US collaboration is one of many new initiatives which have been introduced, with more in the pipeline.

“The Wild Heaven ale is just one of the projects which are taking us to a slightly different level,” said managing director Samantha Walker. “One of our key aims was to take inspiration and learn from, the vibrant craft beer movement in the United States. As there has been increasing interest in American pale ales over recent months, with a number of breweries producing them, we decided we should take it to another level and collaborate directly with a thriving US craft beer producer.

“So through a family friend, we were introduced to the Wild Heaven Craft Brewing Company in Atlanta, Georgia and we have exchanged recipes. We have brewed their award-winning pale ale and have provided them with the recipe for Black Stallion, our award-winning mild ale (SIBA Regional Gold Medal Winner 2013), which they should be brewing later this year.”

The ale is 5.2 per cent amber ale and brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand and Japanese Sorachi Ace hops.

Club members were the first to sample the ale earlier this month. It was later served at a private display at the Zimmer Stewart Gallery, in Tarrant Street, Arundel.