Thomas Hardy’s Ale, revived by the Vecchiato Brothers and brewed by Meantime, has won its fourth gold medal since reappearing on beer shelves.
The vintage barley wine, matured in Hine cognac barrels, took gold at this year’s World Beer Challenge.
The Vecchiato brothers finalised the acquisition of the brand and the recipe in 2012. It had been produced from 1968 to 1999 by the Eldridge Pope Brewery, and later, from 2003 to 2008, by O’Hanlon’s.
After three years to carefully study its history, locate a brewery that could reproduce it and fine-tune the recipe, Thomas Hardy’s Ale was ready to be produced and, in 2016, was officially launched on the market.
A spokesperson for the brewer said: “The difficult comparison with the vintages of the past is amplified by the fact that this barley wine par excellence improves over the years, making a direct comparison with more mature vintages misleading.”
