Pricky Back Otchan - abv 4.2% ; £1.95 / 50cl (From York Press)

Pricky Back Otchan - abv 4.2% ; £1.95 / 50cl

1:57pm Saturday 31st March 2012 in Beer of the week By Jim Helsby

RARELY can the term “family brewers” have been more aptly applied than to the Great Newsome Brewery, founded in 2007 on a farm near Withernsea in East Yorkshire’s Holderness peninsula.

The brewery is owned and run by the Hodgson family, who have farmed there for four generations. Brothers Jon and Matthew are in charge of sales and brewing, while third brother Tom and father Laurence look after distribution.

Telesales and accounts are handled by Doreen and Donna Hodgson respectively. Even Jem, the family’s Springer Spaniel, plays his part, providing the brewery’s logo. The name of this week’s beer, Pricky Back Otchan, is derived from a local dialect term for a hedgehog.

It is amber in colour with a moderate head, and an aroma that is initially green and stalky with a hint of celery, but which develops a resinous, citrus, orange hoppiness as the beer warms. The flavour is pure and clean, with a very soft sweetness from the malt and a note of butterscotch in the background.

A quite strident herbal hoppiness appears in mid-palate, providing a contrastingly dry complement to the sweet malt, and leaving a robust, astringent, lingering bitterness in the aftertaste.