Welsh brewer Tiny Rebel launches three gins

Newport-based brewery Tiny Rebel has teamed up with west Walian distillery Dà Mhìle to release three gins based on the flavours found in its beers.

The brewer, which has previously released a ‘Gin and Juice’ botanical pale ale, has now gone one step further and produced three gins based on the dominant flavours in its beers.

The first gin, Cwtch, is said to mirror the brewery’s flagship beer of the same name with botanicals including lemon and lime peel, spearmint and liquorice. Clwb, based on the brewery’s Clwb Tropicana tropical IPA, combines sweeter fruit botanicals including orange peel, mango, pineapple and grapefruit.

The last gin, Dutty, is based on the brewer’s hop-forward session IPA and is described by Tiny Rebel as having a “zesty lemon flavour, a hint of bitterness, and an incredible light green hue”. The gin is flavoured with lemon and lime peel, spearmint and liquorice and is hopped using the Citra and Mosaic varieties.

The gins have been developed over the past nine months and will be available in the brewer’s bars as well as online for £30 (Cwtch), £35 (Clwb) and £33 (Dutty).

Commenting on the partnership, Tiny Rebel wrote on its website: “We met Dà Mhìle Distillery at Brewfest in 2017, and we were blown away by both their passion and how stupidly delicious their gin is. They’re currently the only organic distillery in Wales, and as we started our gin journey we decided they couldn’t be a more perfect fit.

“We’ve worked closely with Dà Mhìle over the last nine months, with frequent trips to their beautiful distillery (and dairy!) in the Welsh valleys. We’ve hand-labelled bottles, built shipping boxes, and talked beer over cheese toasties”.

In addition to the gins, the brewer recently teamed up with supermarket chain Iceland to use their surplus bread to produce beer. Using the bread to replace some of the malt during mashing, Tiny Rebel produced Bread Board, a beer hopped with Cascade, Jester and Mosaic. Iceland will be donating 10 pence from every bottle sold to environmental charity Surfers against Sewage.

In April this year, Suffolk-based brewer Adnams released a similar product, brewing three beers for UK retailer Marks & Spencer using surplus bread leftover from the store’s sandwich production.

While the connection between bread making and brewing dates back some 4,000 years, the trend has recently gained prominence through the work of brewers such as Toast Ale as a way to reduce food waste.