The organic ale is joined by a pale ale and blonde lager – both non-organic – and are being released under the brewery’s revived Faversham Steam Brewery identity fro the 18th century.

Available in 500ml bottles at 4.5% abv it’s described as “an elegant, appetising, dark blonde organic ale imbued with delicate, sweet summer fruit and smooth soda bread undertones. Clean, crisp and incredibly quaffable.”.

You can see a video review of it in its original bottle here.

To give you a taste of what it’s like, the video is from last year’s conference courtesy of Mr Drink ‘N’ Eat.

I should say thanks in advance to this year’s sponsors:
Molson Coors UK
Pilsner Urquell
Brains
Shepherd Neame
Spiegelau
Hall and Woodhouse
Williams Bros. Brewing Co.
SIBA
Marston’s
Magic Rock Brewing

And a few others I’m sure I’ll find out about and thank afterwards.

Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager.

£1.55 from Vintage Roots or at Sam Smith’s pubs.

5% abv.

A tasty, fruity, full-bodied organic lager.

Brakspear Oxford Gold Organic Beer.

£1.95 from Vintage Roots or supermarkets.

Soil Association approved.

4.6% abv.

A zesty beer that’s great.

I like the simplicity of the engineering of the corkscrew, I often volunteer to open the bottle of wine, even though I don’t drink it, just to use it. I also enjoy the rattle of it (also used as the noise of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who fact fans) and it feels nice and weighty in my hands.

It’s a man’s bottle opener this one.

Weisse Bavarian Wheat Beer.

£2.20 from Vintage Roots – they sell a slightly different version now to the one I tried.

5.2% abv.

Not particularly suited to my tastes but is a decent wheat beer and nice and fruity.

As a promotional item it’s pretty sturdy and although it’s got a few cracks in it’s varnish/coating it’s still strong and works very well. Doesn’t stand up that well due to that very varnish has created a little bump at the bottom but I still like it. Not sure where you could pick one up though, perhaps eBay.

Shepherd Neame’s Whitstable Bay Organic Ale.

£1.85 from Vintage Roots.

4.5% abv.

Soil Association and Vegetarian Society approved.

Unwieldy, clunky and cumbersome, it’s only for use if you can’t find anything else. Also confusingly it has two sides which you can use to open bottles but neither look like it can do it. Takes a couple of hacks to open a bottle too, it tends to slip as there’s not much surface area for friction.

You can get one from any good kitchen

Laverstoke Park Farm Organic Real Ale.

£2.50 available from supermarkets or online.

CAMRA real ale and Soil Association certified.

5% abv.