A specially brewed beer named after a local newspaper is going down a treat in the West Country.

Northcliffe-owned title Stroud Life launched its eponymous brew as part of its ‘Save the Local’ campaign designed to highlight the difficulties facing pubs in rural communities.

So far, Stroud Brewery has brewed 64 firkins, or 4,608 pints, of the ale, which is currently accounting for 25pc of its sales.

The 4pc ABV beer has gone on sale in more than ten pubs in the past month, including some as far away as Bristol and Oxford.

Stroud Life editor Jason Chare said another 20 pubs will start selling the ale within the next week and more are expected to join the campaign.

In return for signing up to the Save the Local package, each pub gets a profile feature in the newspaper and a weekly listing as well as the chance to sell the beer.

Said Jason: “We’re over the moon. We were hoping the beer would go down well but never in our wildest dreams did we think people would take to it so well.

“It’s an added bonus that it is being sold outside the Stroud area at pubs in both Bristol and Oxford as well as Bourton-on-the-Water, which is a popular destination for daytrippers from the Midlands, so the name of Stroud Life is likely to be spreading further afield.

“For Stroud Life the newspaper and our newly-launched Save the Local campaign, the important thing is that more people start using their local pub and, hopefully, the fact the beer is doing so well suggests they are doing just that.

“Six locals in the Stroud valleys had it on tap before this week and now a further 20 are due to start serving it. Hopefully, even more will come on board as the campaign progresses.”

Comments

Matt (12/04/2010 09:41:31)
A great idea – I’m sure this could be rolled out to other newspapers