More than a sip ahoy as Albion’s new beer docks

Jan 4 2008 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

Baltic Fleet

SAILORS traditionally like their grog. But the brew of choice for officers and crew of the Royal Navy’s assault ship HMS Albion is not the traditional rum, but rather that of the Wapping brewery, based at the historic Baltic Fleet pub down at the Liverpool waterfront.

They like it so much that they have commissioned a new beer – Albion, named after the ship – which has been specially concocted by Wapping’s head brewer Stan Shaw.

The ship’s number two Rob Aldous – already in Liverpool to plan a special affiliation between the Albion and Liverpool’s tall ship Zebu, berthed at Albert Dock – used the opportunity to pick up cases of the beer for the vessel’s wardroom.

Some of Albion’s 325 crew had been expected to join him in raising a glass to the new creation, but were unavoidably detained elsewhere.

“Apparently something happened out on the town in Plymouth a couple of nights before and a few of them had been confined to the brig,” said Baltic Fleet manager Ifan James, who said that Wapping’s latest brew was going down great guns with ordinary customers too.

He said Stan had brewed at least two kilderkins – or 36 gallons – of the 5% strong, pale, hoppy bitter, adding that “in the week when the beer first went on sale we probably had our best business in 10 years.”

It’s the latest success story for Wapping and the Baltic Fleet which has been an alehouse since the 18th century and which was so named because it was renowned for serving sailors from the fleets of sailing ships which brought Baltic timber to the port.

On his visit the Albion officer toured the Brewery itself, which occupies the labyrinthine cellars built up over two centuries underneath the pub and which includes now sealed tunnels.

One of these is believed to have been linked to the south shore of Liverpool where the Baltic ships’ timber was unloaded before the original docks were built.

The brewer’s award-winning beers increasingly feature seafaring heritage associated with the pub - and this latest one brings a connection full circle.

His Zebu Bitter was commissioned for an officers and crew party on board Liverpool’s Tall Ship – which itself was originally built in Sweden in 1938 to carry timber through the Baltic – at last year’s Belfast Maritime Festival.

It was here that the Albion crew tasted the Wapping Beer for the first time and resolved that they should have an eponymously-named one.

mikechapple