Dark Dog stalks into Free Trade Inn, Black Kolsch to follow in October

TYNE Bank Brewery‘s latest beer, Dark Dog, is to be launched at the Free Trade Inn in Byker.

The 4.8% ABV “Newcastle-brewed oak smoked brown ale” is the 18 month old Byker-based firm’s third attempt at the city’s most famous booze style after produced Castle Brown especially for the Bridge Hotel, and Alt Beer last autumn.

“We’ve wanted to do a brown since the start of the year because Newcastle is famous for it, and obviously the name Dark Dog is a reference to ‘a bottle of dog’ – Newcastle Brown Ale – but then we thought we’d do something a little different,” said Tyne Bank managing director Julia Austin.

“As we didn’t want to do any old boring brown we used smaoked Rauchmalz malt then added oak chips.

“At the time we didn’t know how it was going to turn out so we racked a pin alongside the fermenting tanks and kept checking it. The chips turned out to be really effective – we only had to leave them in for five days.”

The beer is being launched in cask form at the Free Trade Inn on St Lawrence Road in Byker at 7pm on August 31 2012.

And the brewery have already announced that the special to follow it, in October, will be a 5% ABV German-style lagered offering called Black Kolsch.

“We’re producing the beer to coincide with Oktoberfest,” said Julia, “and there’ll be 40 firkins of it around Newcastle.

“Last year we did Alt Bier, which went really well, but it was a very old style of ale and some people were quite negative because they didn’t like the characteristics that made it what it was meant to be.

“Black Kolsch will be the opposite end of the spectrum.”