There are just 11 Cumbrian ‘bottle conditioned’ ales.

Am waiting for several other Cumbrian breweries to reply to my request for info regarding any bottle conditioned ales they may brew.

Many micro brewers do not produce this genre of beer, which is genuine real ale in a bottle with live yeast.

Such beers are the closest thing to hand pulled cask ale.

Most of the vast array of Cumbrian bottled ales in Booths supermarkets in Cumbria are just filtered, carbonated beers. Many now masquerade as ‘craft’, a term which doesn’t mean a lot but sounds trendy. It is the bottle conditioned ales that are more worthy of being described as having been crafted.

For those unfamiliar with this genre of ale, bottle conditioned beer is REAL ALE IN A BOTTLE and is unfiltered beer with live yeast in the bottle. Traditionally produced BCBs have a visible yeast sediment, are full flavoured and usually have quite a short shelf life. It is possible for a home brewer to utilise live yeast from such beers to start a brew.

There are however modern BCBs which are produced by firstly filtering the beer then adding a bit of live yeast ('seeding') when bottling, but such products lack full flavour, usually have no visible yeast sediment and are not fully-fledged bottle conditioned ales. They do however have a long shelf life.

Booths supermarket in Keswick used to have a separate section for a good range of Bottle Conditioned Beers but now they currently have just 4 on sale mixed in with a vast array of filtered (processed) beers - which are the bottle equivalent of extremely fizzy keg beer, pumped full of carbon dioxide gas, often amusingly branded as 'craft' and they are not a patch as good as BCB, but there is no accounting for taste.

The bottle conditioned beers now produced by Cumbrian brewers are as follows :

1) TARN HOWS BREWERY, Outgate, Ambleside They brew 4 bottle conditioned ales, some of which are seasonal : Pale ; Gorse and Lemon Gose ; Beertrix Porter ; Blueberry & Vanilla Oatmeal Stout 2) CONISTON BREWING COMPANY, Coppermines Road, Coniston The only bottle conditioned beer they brew and bottle in Cumbria is No.9 Barley Wine. They also have 3 BCBs contract-brewed to their own recipe for them in Oxfordshire : Bluebird, Bluebird XB and Old Man Ale.

At time of writing, Booths Supermarket in Keswick is selling boxes of 8 Coniston Bluebird bottles for just £13.80

3) The Gan Yam Brewery in Kendal has produced several small batch bottle-conditioned ales for the Forest Side Hotel restaurant in Grasmere. Brewery owner Jonathan Le Mare supplied this photo below.

Great names !