Celebrating the beer twinning of Norfolk and Flanders and remembering Dave Cornell
The beer twinning of the great beer regions of Norfolk and Flanders and the beer cities of Norwich and Leuven first saw 8 breweries link arms and create collaboration brews in 2023.
The friendship and the links have strengthened, and the latest collaboration and beer creation has a special poignancy as it will remember the passing of Dave Cornell.
Dave was one of the original band of brewers to create the ‘Strangers’ links but sadly passed away, only a couple of weeks after arranging the next Belgian adventures with the team.
The latest brew – Strangers Blonde was brewed this week very much with Dave in our thoughts – and we welcomed Bart from De Coureur Brewery who first collaborated with Dave when he was at Poppyland Brewery.
Dimitri from Adept brewery, in Leuven contributed to the recipe development but was unable to pop along this time as we brewed the beer at Grain Brewery with ourselves, Tindall and Bart all doing our bit to make a great beer.
We wanted to create a traditional style Belgian Blonde – smooth, sweet, balanced, easy drinking – but with a few twists – using a heritage lager malt called Hannah and a new aromatic British hop – Opus. Obviously, Belgian stalwarts candy sugar and orange peel were also present!
As you would expect the beer is also a robust strength – weighing in at 7.5% abv.
The beer will be released in May – we want it to slowly develop and mature – the Belgians very much do not like to rush things.
We will keep you updated on how the beer is developing but as this is a limited edition do make sure that you put your name down for one the cask version so that you do not miss out.
The beer will also be available in bottles.