Bourne Festival organisers brew-up ale

Bourne Festival organisers have teamed-up with a brewery to create a special ale for the event - and they made it themselves.

On Saturday, members of the Bourne and District Round Table headed to the Hopshackle Brewery in Market Deeping where they were helped to conjure up pale amber session ale, RefeRectum, by staff from the brewery.

The Hopshackle Brewery have agreed to sell the Round Table seven barrels of RefeRectum - which will provide thirsty festival-goers with 488 pints of the ale.

Paul Martin, chairman of the Round Table, said: “We have tried to make the ultimate session ale, so with the help of Mr Hopshackle, we have designed something a little sweeter and well balanced but retaining a powerful hop aroma.

“In terms of the hops we have gone for, a single hop variety, Ahtanum, named after the first hop farm in America, which has good aromatic qualities but moderate bitterness.

“As we wanted it to be all about aroma this [Ahtanum] was added almost entirely through the hopback [a container which extracts the aroma from hops] after the wort [liquid extracted from the mashing process] had been boiled.

“This filled the air with the smell of hops, lemon, honey and lime.

“This wasn’t a hop variety that I had really come across - but after smelling the aromas when we were brewing it, I’m very much looking forward to tasting it.”

RefeRectum is 4.3 percent, and its slogan is ‘If you don’t like it, have another’.

To make the ale, Round Table members combined pale, wheat, munich and caramel malts to form a pale amber base.

Paul said of the ale-making process: “This provided much needed exercise for the Bourne Round Tablers who had to load over 150kg of malt, stir the mash, and then clean it all out once the mashing stage was complete.”

Members of the group also designed the pump clip for the ale during their visit to the brewery.

Including RefeRectum, there will be a choice of more than 71 ales on offer at the festival, and an incredible 12,000 pints of alcohol on sale.

Paul said: “I hope the people of South Lincolnshire are thirsty!”

The Round Table is making sure that the local area is represented at the festival as 50 of the ales on offer are being provided by breweries in the area.

“The food miles on the beers are tiny - on average they have travelled no more than 20 miles,” Paul explained.

“This coupled with the fact that all profits from the festival are distributed to local charities and good causes, results in the fact that you will struggle to drink more responsibly.”

This is the second year the Round Table has created an ale - last year, The Star Brewing Company in Market Deeping provided it with one called, Beery Mcbeerface.

Paul added that Beery Mcbeerface sold out by the second day of the festival and he hoped that this year’s special ale would also prove to be a big hit with drinkers.

The Bourne Festival takes place between June 2 and 4 on the Wellhead Field.

As well as the copious amount of beers, ale and cider on offer at the festival, there will be bands, a funfair as well as food and craft stalls.

To see a full list of the ales and ciders available at the festival visit facebook.com and search for the Bourne Festival 2017! page.