The Celebration Porter (4.5%)
Being for the benefit of the upstanding customers of Anspach & Hobday, and masterfully brewed to mark the 11th anniversary of the brewery, The Celebration Porter is humbly offered as a token of our enduring gratitude. The esteemed brewers have performed a feat certain to astound all who imbibe, marrying together rich, roasty notes of the finest malted barley with delicate yet brooding dark fruit aromas of the most prized hops. A venerable treat for one and all, The Celebration Porter will surely top the bill!
How We Made It
The Celebration Porter was made to celebrate 11 years of Anspach & Hobday. The beer pulls together everything that’s recognisable about A&H beers, but still has its own identity and sense of occasion.
To this end, we’ve celebrated our roots as a Porter brewery, but were keen to take a different approach to the recipe. Inspired by our 1st birthday beer, The Three Threads, we included a large portion of amber malt in the grist, which gives a lovely toasty aroma and a bit of residual sweetness. As with a number of our other historically inspired beers, we also included Invert Sugar No. 2, which adds notes of dark fruit and burnt toffee. In terms of its historical reference, a recipe of this sort probably predates the sorts of Porters we are used to brewing, relying less on very highly kilned malts. This results in a beer that is more of a deep ruby red than a pitch black.
To create a concept for the label, we looked back at our previous creative inspirations. Elements of Victoriana London have underpinned our labels since the very beginning, so we looked for a way to see a more whimsical and fantastical side. Much like our own Arch House, the Circus came to mind as space that can entertains and delight all manner of people. We looked back over vintage artwork of the time and were taken by the colours, the figures, and the renaissance-style composition. Following the Beatles, we took inspiration from the retro ‘Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite’ poster.
We took our ideas so far to our illustrator Alan Batley, who took familiar characters from the Porter, the Lager and The IPA and created our very own Anspach & Hobday circus troupe. The Spectacle he created homes in on the beer as an homage to our last ten years and celebration of the next!
The finished label.
Last night, 27 March 2025, saw the launch of the beer in cask, keg and can with our nearest and dearest, plus fans of A&H who came far and wide to try it, alongside sea shanties, bread and cheese and a special awards presentation from CAMRA. The IPA won Champion IPA of Britain 2024 and Silver Supreme Champion Beer of Britain 2024 and the Smoked Brown won Silver Champion Specialty Beer of Britain 2025. The IPA silver supreme champion is the best result from a London brewery since 1991 when Fullers' won a silver of their own with their ESB, so we’re in very good company!
A massive thank you to everyone who came and and everyone else who has supported us so wholeheartedly over the years.
Sincerely,
Jack, Paul and the A&H team.
