Our own Blue Bell Bitter at 3.5% - always on!

Brewed by Facers in Flintshire - a traditional amber bitter. Full bodied and well hopped to give a balanced taste. Great as it is or as a refreshing shandy.

Hops: 100% Goldings. Malt: Crystal, Optic malt & torrefied wheat.

We're now up to brew recipe eight. We thought recipe six would be it but price has become an issue so after a bit of tweaking of recipe seven we think we've got it, what do you think? We're trying to get good value and great taste in one pint but we need your feedback to achieve it.

We've added wheat to improve head retention and a little more crystal malt to make it slightly darker. Recipe seven was tweaked a little to reduce the bitterness as the Goldings were a tad too bitter despite what the book says.

In recipe five we slowly removed the Liberty hops from the recipe we started with (so called, we now realise, because the cost of them now is a liberty!). The hop recipe for Blue Bell Bitter is now 100% Goldings hops.

This is a huge change for the better in terms of the beer’s carbon footprint, as the Liberty hops were grown in America but the Goldings are British. It’s also helping us keep the cost down as the Goldings have ‘only’ gone up by a trifling 111% from £7.35/kilo last year to £15.50/kilo; they haven’t actually confirmed the cost of Liberty at the moment, but we're expecting something like £25 - £30/kilo.

We used to use Maris Otter malt but price became an issue for the same reasons, poor harvest yields and some lunatic fringe growing fuel instead of food - Did you know that The Economist, End of cheap food, Dec 6th 2007 article stated that 'filling the tank of an SUV with ethanol [made with corn/maize] requires enough corn/maize to feed a person for a year,' it'll be the same with cereals too soon, OK rant over!

We actually think Optic malt comes out better in taste tests, what do you think? Your comments would be most welcomed here or over the bar so we can craft this beer not only to suit our tastebuds but our pockets as well!

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Brewed by Facers in Flintshire - A beautiful new dark beer designed to provide a non-chemical / gassy alternative to that expensive syrup that is famously brewed in Dublin, then shipped/trucked over here and thinned with water modified by chemists in Runcorn!

Dark Blue at 4% is well priced and takes you back to that Irish beers roots as a porter.  Better still, if you are a member of CAMRA we'll shave off another 20p per pint.  Now that's what I call value and this beer has nothing but the finest non-chemical ingredients too! Those ingredients include Optic Pale Ale Malt, Crystal Malt and Chocolate Malt and the hops are 1st Gold.

Described by Mad Ed as, "mild with attitude," the beer should suit all dark beer drinkers (e.g. Mild, Porter & Stout). If it works - and we can tune the recipe - we'll have Dark Blue as a permanent feature on the bar nestled comfortably beside our now famous Blue Bell Bitter.

It's the landlords new favourite pint, although the Blue Bell Bitter takes a lot of beating!

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A medium premium blend Wiltshire cider from Moles of Melksham (contract brewed for them by Thatchers in Somerset) full of flavour with a clean apple bite. 

Ness thinks it's lovely!

Ralph's Medium Perry 6.5%abv is a full flavoured, refeshing and well balanced premium perry. As for the pears its made from, most of their perrys are mixed variety pears as Ralph's only take from small orchards in their area, many with only a couple of trees in them! It's what gives Ralph's its lovely flavour and perhaps why it has won so many awards (check out Ralph's web site).

Because of its nature this Perry will vary in abv each time we have it so the abv above will represent whatever the latest batch is.

Rosie's Rampant Ram 7.2%abv dry cider made by our favourite cider maker Steve Hughes in Llandegla near Wrexham.

This particular brew which is fermented in rum casks was launched at the 2008 Llangollen food festival to much aclaim.

Steve is our cider maker and brings his vintage tractor, scratter and press to the Blue Bell Inn to make Rosie's Blue Bell Cider !

Dafarn Dywyrch Llandegla where Steve's ciders are made is situated at 1000 feet above sea level and was an inn used by drovers till the late 1800s.

In 2004 Steve began planting a cider orchard and they now grow 44 different varieties of apple and he now has nearly 400 trees planted.  This cider is produced from 100% scratted and pressed apples and Rosie the Jack Russell checks the orchard every day!