Top UK beer author Roger Protz has hailed South Yorkshire’s Acorn Brewery as ‘a shining example of craft brewers’ after sampling the innovative brewer’s award winning cask brews.

The country’s foremost beer writer and editor of the annual Camra (Campaign for Real Ale) Good Beer Guide visited Barnsley to learn more of Acorn’s fast growing success as a craft brewer. Roger has written 18 books on beer and pubs – including ‘The Beer Lover’s Guide to Cricket’.

Acorn’s core cask-conditioned brews – Barnsley Bitter, Barnsley Gold, Old Moor Porter, Gorlovka Imperial Stout and newcomer Conquest – have won more than forty awards for the seven-year-old brewer*. Recently sale volumes spiralled by 29 per cent on the previous year, well above average in the steadily growing cask beer market**. All beers use the same yeast strain as the original Barnsley Brewery of the 1850′s, to provide their distinctive Yorkshire character.

After looking around the Wombwell brewery, Roger tasted several Acorn beers with head brewer Dave Hughes at Elsecar’s historic Market Hotel – the brewery’s first pub customer. The tasting included a pioneering IPA (India Pale Ale) range showcasing New Zealand hop varieties throughout 2010.

In previous years hop varieties from the UK, USA and Europe have been featured in the special brews and demand has grown each year. All are brewed to the same recipe at 5%abv strength with only the hop changing. With 36 IPA cask ales brewed since 2007, Acorn brewers believe they already have set a world record for brewing in this original 19th century style.

The first brew was Pacific Gem with ‘distinctive berry fruit aroma and was followed by Motueka offering ‘a desirable new world “noble” aroma’ and New Zealand Cascade with ‘exceptional levels of citrus’. This initiative has been praised in the Society of Independent Brewers Business Awards.
Roger said: “Acorn Brewery is a shining example of the new breed of craft breweries that are bringing taste and flavour back to beer. Acorn has a fine portfolio of beer, ranging from traditional bitter, through golden ale to porter and stout. In the 21st century, Acorn is brewing the type of beer that a growing number of discriminating consumers want to drink**.The Barnsley Bitter has a lovely hop resin aroma. It’s all about the beauty of the hop and its quite dark for a bitter. It also has a little taste of chocolate in the mouth”

Dave Hughes said: “It was a real pleasure to tell our success story to Roger and introduce him to our popular beers including the new IPA selection. This positive feedback from such a leading industry figure is very much appreciated as we prepare to invest further in our own growth and the craft beer revival.”