Quatercentenary Ale
Harvey's Brewery

(due to the 2500 character-rule, I have to add the comments below in a separate piece.)

This new beer is brewed in celebration of the 400th anniversary of "the Discovery of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot", according to the beer label. It's aptly named and brewed by this Lewes-based brewery, coz every year the historic town is where you get the long-established Bon-Fire/Guy Fawkes' Night celebration at its extreme--not just splendid firework and joyful procession held jointly by several Bon-Fire teams across East Sussex, but also burning of Pope's effigies by the riverbank, in total several of them by different teams!! In addition to celebration of the failure of Guy Fawke's Catholic plot, what makes Lewes' Bon-Fire Night so "lively" lies in the event's other purpose in remembrance of the martyrdom of one and a half dozen of Prostestants burned at the stakes during the reign of Bloody Mary which took place right in the middle of the old town Lewes.

Now this year is the 400th anniversary of the disclosing of the gunpoweder plot, the Harvey's launches this beer not to aggravate religious rifts (I believe, as Sussex folks are relaxed and great!), but to seize the chance to revive a beer true to the style of "the strong beers and October Ales brewed during the 17th century in the country estates of the gentry and nobility"; "strong malt sugars are boiled, heavily hopped, fermented and matured to produce a bitter-sweet beer with a high spirit content". Sounds enticing? I'm drinking it first~~