Presenting, Bluntrock Ambassador
Inspired by centuries of British brewing tradition, and our head-brewer and co-founder George’s own upbringing in Burton on Trent. We're excited to introduce Ambassador; a sophisticated, well balanced 4.0% Best Bitter, that we brew right here in Rock, Cornwall. Launching on Wednesday 25th March.
Ambassador is a juxtaposition of British heritage and modern beer - the finest ingredients from our cherished British suppliers are combined with our modern brewing techniques, a Burtonised water profile, traditional floor-malted Warminster malt, Fuggles, Goldings, and Challenger hops from Hukins Hops in Kent, and a unique Burton Ale yeast.
The result? A divine Best Bitter that marries bready, sweet malt flavours to woody, earthy hops, which is melded together with an expressive yeast variety and the precise makeup of the brewing liquor.
Launch Day & Official First Pour Events
Next Wednesday there will be official first pour events at the venues who will be pouring Ambassador on cask for the very first time, in Cornwall and beyond.
You'll be able to find Ambassador pouring at the following venues next Wednesday the 25th of March:
Cornwall
- Atlantic – New Polzeath – PL27 6UG
- Barrel – Bude – EX23 8BN
- Bluntrock Taproom – St Minver – PL27 6NS
- Cornish Arms– Frogpool, Truro – TR4 8RP
- Gurnard's Head – Treen, Zennor, St Ives – TR26 3DE
- Harbour House Flushing – Flushing, Falmouth – TR11 5TY
- Hole in the Wall – Bodmin – PL31 2DS
- Mexico Inn – Long Rock, Penzance – TR20 8JD
- Old Ale House – Truro – TR1 2HD
- Pilchard's Press – St Ives – TR26 1LF
- Quarryman – Wadebridge – PL27 7JA
- Red Lion – St Kew Highway, Bodmin – PL30 3DN
- Royal Oak – Perranwell Station, Truro – TR3 7PX
- St Mabyn Inn – St Mabyn, Bodmin – PL30 3BA
- The Harlyn – Harlyn Bay, Padstow – PL28 8SB
- The Standard Inn – Portscatho, Truro – TR2 5EB
Dorset
- Butchers Dog – Wimborne – BH21 1DS
London
- Craft Beer Co. - Clerkenwell – EC1N 7TR
- Clement Attlee - Limehouse – E14 7JD
- Craft Beer Co - St Mary Axe – EC3A 5BU
- Craft Beer Co. – Hammersmith - W6 9YD
- The Bear - Paddington – W2 1JA
- Craft Beer Co. - Covent Garden – WC1V 7AA
- Green Goddess – Blackheath – SE3 7AA
- Craft Beer Co. - Brixton – SW9 8PA
Bristol
- Lupe – Bristol – BS3 1ES
Newcastle
- Mosaic Tap – Newcastle upon Tyne – NE1 5DW
If you're in the area, make sure to stop by and try a pint next Wednesday!
A note from George
A note from George, Bluntrock Head Brewer, on Ambassador:
“Ambassador is the most exciting beer we’ve brewed. I love hazies, I love crisp lagers, bitter piney IPA’s and refreshing citrusy pale ales, but a proper pint is what I crave the most, no matter the weather.
Growing up in Burton upon Trent you’re surrounded by brewing. At one time Burton upon Trent was the world capital of brewing. Vast leaps forward in brewing technology and process took place in the town, and it gave rise to many styles we still drink today, namely; IPA. It’s impossible to ignore the effect Burton’s brewing history has had on the town, from the road names, such as Worthington Way, to the football club; Burton Brewers.
I largely overlooked the impact of growing up in Burton until when I was 18, I decided I wanted to get a job in a brewery. That is besides the beer drinking side, with my first legal pint being Bass. Then all of the exposure I’d had came very clear. I used to go to the National Brewery Centre with my grandad and play with the model train set of Old Burton and pet the shire horses. My childhood best friend’s dad opened a brewery (Tower Brewery) in 2000 (I was 4) and we used to play on the malt pallets, then when we were teenagers our band practiced in the Brewery. My mum and dad met whilst working at Allied Breweries, most of my friends parents worked in the Brewing industry and Michael Thomas Bass, the owner of Bass Brewery (at the time, the biggest brewery in the world) and Burton MP went to the same school as me.
All of this seemed irrelevant until I started to have a genuine interest in beer.
Ambassador is for me personally, without a doubt the most important beer we've developed. Not because it's the most innovative in its process, or using the newest hop varieties, but because Ambassador is a homage to beers that have been consistently enjoyed for longer than anyone here at Bluntrock has even been alive. Because of the almost timeless nature of these beers, pubs and the drinkers who inhabit them have sort of evolved together. They go into the same pub, at the same time, on the same day, and drink the same number of pints of the same beer… So they know what they want in that type of beer. For us the difficulty was making sure that the very first pint stands up against the other great examples of the style, so there was basically 0 margin for error. You have one chance with drinkers of this style.
Ambassador is a Burton style Bitter/pale ale, a style now not seen as much in the South West. It was once more common but since the 1990’s, the style has appeared down here much less often, and now is a novelty when it’s found on a bar.
I think it’s a real shame that the style is less common. In my opinion it’s the perfect beer for cask. It is the only style that seems to be able to perfectly balance all 4 parts of a beer. For our take on the style we’ve taken inspiration from historical brewing references from the town, as well as advice from brewers in the town both retired and still working.
As a style it’s very difficult to get exact details on the recipes or process of brewing one. Most of the remaining styles are owned by giant multinational beverage companies who; despite having no interest in actually making it themselves, insist on keeping all the historical information locked away. So we had to design this recipe from the ground up using our own taste and what advice we could get from retired brewers in Burton. It was a long process which started with each of the ingredients;
The water we use is Burtonised (Burtonisation is the process of adding minerals to brewing liquor/water to replicate the properties of Burton upon Trent's famous brewing water) to be extremely high in levels of calcium sulphate (gypsum) to replicate the historic wells of Burton. We have a bore hole on site which pumps water from the ground into a large holding tank, via a large water filtration plant. First we remove everything so that we can add salts and minerals back into the water when we come to brew, and hit the exact water profile of historic Burton upon Trent water.
The grist of Ambassador has a base of traditionally floor-malted Maris Otter from Warminster Maltings, the oldest working floor maltings in England. A touch of crystal and a sprinkle of chocolate malts give the beer much of its colour, but we also use traditional blocks of brewers’ invert sugar giving the beer a unique caramelised property.
The hops are single-origin UK hops grown by Hukins Hops, a 5-generational hop farm in Kent. We’ve gone with a blend of the two British classics; Goldings and Fuggles as well as Challenger. A solid hit post-boil gives a refreshing grassy note that cuts through the malt.
The yeast is the most important part. Just using any clean, top-cropping yeast would make a solid bitter, but to make it truly Burton in style, a proper Burton yeast is needed. We embarked upon a mission to find the right yeast for this beer, in a project that’s been in the works for 2 years.
We started by trying to source our own heritage yeast from a selection of Bass Corkers (A series of Bass Barley Wines that date back to 1869) and old Burton Beers, with a trip to Brewlab and the University of Sunderland. The bottles were sterilised, opened and samples were taken to analyse. From the subsequent lab work we found out much about the beers, and some non brewing strains of yeast, but unfortunately, no historic Burton yeast strain.
We then started looking at banked yeast at the NCYC (National Collection of Yeast Cultures) and worked our way through the strains that weren’t under lock and key, then onto commercially available strains. We explored lots of different yeasts, all of them being isolated from Burton upon Trent until we found the right one.
The yeast is so important to this style, as with the high levels of Calcium Sulphate in the water, it becomes very expressive during fermentation. It gives the beers a really unique “Burton” character which I can only suggest you try for yourself in this beer.”
