Sometimes you just want to keep it simple, and sometimes the old songs are the best.  We realised we haven’t brewed you a porter in a long time, which is weird because they are amazing. We love a nice pint of porter, it’s got stacks of flavour and all those beautiful, warmed up crystal and roasted malts smell great on a brew day.

Pint of Plain is a collaboration beer brewed at Castle Rock Brewery with our good friends from Wild Card Brewery. After being looked after so well down in London when we brewed Brainwave together in July, we were really excited to get them up to Nottingham and brew with them again.

The Brew Day:

Jaega and Billy came up for the day and got stuck in straight away, digging out the mash tun and helping out with the yeast analysis in our laboratory. As with all our collabs, we all ate a lot of doughnuts and drank a lot of coffee, and it was a real treat for us to have them come visit.

Our head brewer Jon came up with the recipe through discussion with Wild Card head brewer Jaega, basing it on a classic porter recipe and adding just a touch of smoked malt in the grist to give the beer that old world feel.

Maris Otter malt provides a solid foundation of flavour for the crystal, roasted and kilned malts to build on; subtle and understated English hops provide balanced bitterness; and our treasured yeast culture provides subtle, fruity esters, and sees to it that everything marries together during cask conditioning.   

This beer is only available in pubs and only in cask, it’s super limited and perfect for a winter’s evening by the fireside in a cosy pub. (Preferably after a hard day’s work delivering goods across cobbled streets but, failing that, after a hard day’s graft at the desk works too.)

Malt: Maris Otter, Crystal, Chocolate, Amber, Brown, Roast Barley Smoked malt

Hops: Northdown, WGV, Bramling Cross

Yeast: Castle Rock House Culture

Allergens: Malted barley (gluten)