Originally published in What’s Brewing March 2005.
Note this brewery has since closed.
Origin: Llangefni, Isle of Anglesey, Wales
ABV: 4 and 4.5 per cent
Buy from local sources, brewery
Ynys Môn Medra
Only four Welsh breweries offering real ale in a bottle are listed in the current Good Bottled Beer Guide, and with St David’s Day only days away when this issue hits the streets, I’ve finally had a chance to feature one of them in this column.
Though small, Bragdy Ynys Môn – that’s ‘Isle of Anglesey Brewery’ in Saesneg – can still lay claim to being the biggest brewery in northwest Wales. It’s located in a farmhouse in open countryside in the southeast of the island, within sight of Snowdonia, where it’s been since it was founded by Martyn Lewis in 1999.
An enthusiastic bottler, the brewery has its own line, a shrewd investment given its location in a far-flung corner of the nation. All the beers are racked straight from the cask, unfiltered, unfined and vegan-friendly. With the help of Martyn I picked out two from a range of six to feature here, both of them beers of quality and distinction.
Medra (4 per cent), the most distinctive of the two by a hair, is a cheerful bitter with a stylish American twist from using Cascade hops alongside Fuggles. The name means ‘I can’ and refers to a local tradition that the island’s people were especially versatile, always giving this answer when asked if they could do a particular job.
Medra pours a lovely sunny amber with a persistent bubbly off-white head. There’s a pronounced honeybush aroma with some more resiny hoppiness.
The palate emphasises the smoky, roasty qualities of crystal malt, veering close to Rauchbier territory but with lots of fruit and a pleasing sweetish chaffiness. There’s more smoke in the finish, with cedarwood and a rounded hop bitterness.
This easy-going beer is as versatile as its name suggests, with a complex enough flavour for the demanding sipper and a drinkable and attractive fruitiness that would suit the food matcher – but at a weak enough strength to quench the thirst too.
Tarw Du (Black Bull, 4.5 per cent), the brewery’s first beer, is a big black stout that’s more intense than its gravity suggests. It pours extremely dark and oily with mushroom-brown lace, giving off the scents of roast nuts, strong drinking chocolate and malted milk.
In the mouth it’s beautifully soft and creamy, but dryish and roasty too, with flashes of sweet and sour fruit. The beer turns tangier on the swallow, with intense ash, roast and bitter chocolate dominating the finish, but with nice tangy fruit making the going very easy indeed. Iechyd da!
Read more about Medra at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/bragdy-ynys-mon-medra/53662/
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