Knight Ryeder

Knight Ryeder Staggeringly Good / Arundel  (440ml, 6.0% ABV)

Collaborations between breweries are increasingly common these days. Some (I’m looking at you, Mikkeller) don’t even have their own brewing facilities, and brew solely on other companies’ equipment.

Knight Ryeder is a joint venture between Arundel Brewery and Staggeringly Good of Portsmouth. A label that could so easily have featured a cartoon of David Hasselhoff is instead emblazoned with a sword-wielding knight riding a pink dinosaur. Fair warning: this is not going to be a shy and retiring beer.

It comes in a 440ml can, which seems a good size for a beer of this strength – a bit smaller than the English standard 500ml bottle, but more generous than a 330ml.

It pours with a massive head of foam, eventually settling to a hazy orange-brown colour. As per the Staggeringly Good ethos, there are no finings to make this beer clear. All that suspended murk is part of the flavour.

The nasal assault of pink grapefruit is carried through into the taste – it’s as spiky as a morning star to the jaw! A generous dose of alcohol helps to balance the hops, and after the swallow, the bitter fruit yields to a savoury spiciness.

The polar opposite of a traditional mild? Could be …

Written by Richard Salsbury