Best new beers of 2012…Elixir Benedictine Groove

For the penultimate offering in our list of best new British beers of 2012, we head back two months to October. A small-scale operation, contracting out to another brewery, launched their first beer – and it got everybody in Edinburgh talking…

Benedictine Groove (5.5%)
Elixir Brewing Company, Edinburgh
(cask, released October)

2012 was very much the year of the new micro-brewery. By my reckoning, fourteen opened in Scotland over the last twelve months – two-thirds of them actual production breweries, all shiny fermenters and bold hopes for the future. The other few that got their beers into the market were contract-based – cuckoos, gypsies and the like – those with the ideas, but not necessarily the capital. One of the plus points of this kind of arrangement is that running smaller batches (on someone else’s equipment) gives you freedom to be that little bit more creative.

Of all the new kids on the block in 2012, that particular word undoubtedly applies most to Elixir Brewing Company. Their latest beer – Minception – released as I write this (and already selling out) is a fruit mince porter, brewed with raisins, sultanas, currants, cranberries, citrus zest and Irn Bru. Utilising ingredients that are somewhat unexpected could be said to be a house style for Elixir, as their very first beer – Benedictine Groove – involved tablet and Scotland’s folly, the infamous Buckfast tonic wine.

It really shouldn’t have worked – but it did, absolutely. A sweet, sugary hit from the tablet before chocolate smokiness and then a rich, fruity, port-like alcohol warmth. Over time, the sweetness mellowed as the alcohol became more evident. Producing small volumes doesn’t mean you can just chuck anything into the mash tun – instead, it provides the truly creative with a chance to shine – as it did with a certain tank-hopping Danish brewer. Benedictine Groove isn’t really a ‘first’ beer, as Elixir’s Benjii has been home-brewing for years, but for a ‘first’ beer, it was astonishing.

So, there’s only one more to go. Join us tomorrow for our final best new British beer of 2012. We stay in Scotland, and really go out on a high as the year is underlined as a great one for our national drink. Check back then for our final selection, and find out what it could be. Elixir aren’t resting on their laurels – they are putting together a version of Minception with added smoked naga chillies, called Mincendiary Device.