Stingo
What wonderful schronicity that it will be exactly a year to the day from the brew on the 6th August 2024 to our celebration launch at the Hand and Marigold next Wednesday 6th August 2025.
My memories of that beautiful day? I had spent the previous Saturday bottling my Boffle Barley Wine which meant I had a couple of bottles with me to give out so I was feeling like I had this solo brewing thing absolutely under control!
I had got the train up to Cam and Dursley station from Bristol and the journey itself was gorgeous all deep greens fields and hills as Somerset rolls into Gloucestershire. The man himself Jonny Mills picked me up from the station and we drove on to The Sally, or The Salutation Inn one of the west country's great pubs which just happens to have a 5bbl brewery in a outbuilding outback. This was where Mills brewery had been making wort for the last ten years before their move to their own brewery in Stroud this year.
Our paths had crossed at Heriot Watt for a year back in 2011 and I had watched on in awe as Jonny had carved out a brewing career for himself first at Bristol Beer Factory before his audacious outrageous move into making his own barrel aged wild and mixed fermentation beers. Now I had the privilege of seeing behind the curtain and how he produced his often miraculous unique delicious ales and cider hybrids.
In a way our shared interests in aged ales had finally collided, fittingly over 10 years since we first met, these times take time. I had had the great good fortune to arrive at Fullers at a time when John Keeling and Georgina Young working with beer historian Ron Pattinson were ambitiously bringing back and trying to recreate as closely as they could brews from the Fullers archives.
But strangely an old glorious beer that they had in their cellar was being neglected- namely Gales Prize Old Ale. Fullers had bought Gales brewery in 2005 and with it stocks of their greatest beer Prize Old Ale a Stingo type ale- what is a Stingo you ask- it's an ancient catch all term for a beer brewed in the manorial farming estates of the north of England where only two rules applied brew it as strong as you can and age for at least a year in wood.
With the help and encouragement of many people I was able to rebrew Prize Old Ale and relaunch it back in 2022. So when Jonny got in contactasking if I would like to work with him I immediately thought a Stingo type brew would be the perfect match.
Taking the prize old ale recipe- Maris otter pale ale malt, black malt and terrified wheat with invert sugar and plenty of fuggles hops we arrived at the Sally and started mashing. A truly unforgettable brew day at the end of which after hitting our target SG of 1090 we transferred the wort into a IBC and drove to Mills barrel ageing HQ a mile down the road in Berkeley, an amazing barrel store where Jonny works his blending magic.The beer primarily fermented into a open stainless steel tank that Jonny inherited from Bristol Beer Factory before maturing with bramling cross dry hops in a variety of beautiful barrels for nine months before releasing in bottle and- especially for the hand and marigold- cask pins!
There is the Stingo Light the grist of which closely resembles the original Gales POA recipe and then the Stingo Dark with added black malt. Both are absolutely exceptional beers available in bottle right now via Mills Brewing website and we can't wait to meet you all at the Hand and Marigold this Wednesday 6th August from 6pm to try the blended version on cask!