Seasonale.

Yule tide fast approaches and we're very much in the mood for a festive brew to help spread the good cheer (look, yeh, I know it's only November and all that but we have to plan ahead, OK?). A cunning combination of pale ale malt, malted rye, crystalised rye and organic chocolate rye was mashed this morning and the resulting wort boiled with a union of fruity, spicy hops including one of this house's regular favourites, Bramling Cross, grown by Tony Redsell in Canterbury. Used judiciously, crystalised rye can add a wonderfully festive and opulent temperament to a brew already invigorated with the spicy, dry, pale malted version of the cereal. As for the organic chocolate malted rye? Well, we'll see. Or smell. Or taste. I only used a teeny bit this year, not knowing much about it*.

Little Cracker, 5%, ruby, fruity and spicy. Available throughout East Kent on enlightened handpumps and also from our own shop, just here, in polypins, firkins, kilderkins, barrels and hogsheads. Until late December.

*See, sometimes we can just throw stuff in nonchalantly.