Vale Brewery has teamed up with Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) on a fundraising beer.
Left to right: David Sheffield of BBOWT, Huw Davies of Vale Brewery, and Victoria Bentiba and Rob Cooke, of BBOWT, with a pint of Brock’s Den at the Vale Brewery bar. Photograph: Vale Brewery
Brock’s Den is named after an old-fashioned word for a badger. The brewery, based just outside the village of Ludgershall, between Aylesbury and Bicester, has pledged to donate 10p from every pint of the new beer to the wildlife trust.
Victoria Bentiba, corporate relations officer at BBOWT, said: “We were so delighted when Vale Brewery suggested this idea. Apart from the fact that many staff at BBOWT are extremely partial to a pint, this is also a small, independent business, selling its beer locally in a way that is much more environmentally-friendly than a lot of the international produce we consume today.
“We are very proud to be partnering with this conscientious company, and we’re really grateful for their support. What’s more, several BBOWT staff had the pleasure of sampling Brock’s Den at the brewery this week and can confirm it is very easy to drink! Of course, we’d also like to remind people to drink responsibly.”
Brock’s Den is a traditional ruby ale using 100% British ingredients. Sovereign and East Kent Golding hops give an earthy, honey nose, and a blend of pale planet and dark crystal malts, with some torrified wheat, give a malty
finish.
Vale has brewed 160 nine-gallon casks — approximately 11,500 pints — and is expecting to sell all of it in the next four weeks, so beer and nature lovers are urged to snap it up while it is available.
The brewery has the environment and sustainability at the heart of its ‘grain to glass’ ethos. Even the beer’s pumpclip is made from recycled cardboard.
The company tries to use UK or European-grown hops as often as possible, to minimise its carbon footprint, and brews with sustainable, UK-sourced grains. What’s more, once the sugars are extracted, the spent grain is used by a local farmer to feed cattle and even used to feed black soldier fly larvae, which are a sustainable aquaculture feed.
Huw Davies, Vale Brewery’s head of operations, said: “I have always been a big believer in nature conservation and protecting our environment. I was very fortunate to be raised in an area of South Wales with every type of natural habitat on the doorstep, and I immersed myself in the outdoors, so conservation became a passion.
“We’re very fortunate here at Vale Brewery to be surrounded by wonderful nature. In fact, we’re just a couple of fields away from BBOWT’s Rushbeds Wood nature reserve. I’ve seen first hand the positive impacts local wildlife charities can make, and having a BBOWT site up the road is a perfect opportunity for us to give back to the local area.”
The company also happens to be just minutes away from BBOWT’s newest nature reserve, Ludgershall Meadows, which it successfully acquired after a £330,000 public fundraising appeal last year.
The Wildlife Trust will put the money raised from Brock’s Den towards its work managing more than 86 nature reserves across the three counties, as well as running educational events and working with local authorities and land owners.
