New beer marks NFU's centenary year

February 20, 2008: The Warwickshire-based Purity Brewing Company is helping the National Farmers' Union (NFU) toast its centenary year with a new beer, Farmers' Harvest.

The beer is going on sale at more than 230 Tesco stores around the country, as well as through the Beer Club of Britain. From March it will also be on sale at 27 licensed Countrywide stores across the country.

The beer was the brainchild of Ken Sutherland, the NFU's director of finance and internal services, who got the idea when Purity provided a small bar for the official opening of the union's headquarters in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, in June 2006.

"The hard work started in January 2007 with trying to organise things like finding a brewery, deciding what the beer would be like, and designing a label," said Mr Sutherland. "The beer's being produced by a small, local, traditional business, based on a farm, using only British ingredients, and that ticks all the boxes for us.

"We were mulling over all sorts of names. Of course, farmer had to be in there somewhere and harvest is a celebration of the fruits of the countryside, so the two seemed a perfect fit and sum up exactly what the beer is all about."

Farmers Harvest is unique because it is the first alcoholic beverage to carry the Red Tractor assurance mark.

Colin Smith, chairman of Assured Food Standards, the independent organisation that manages the scheme, said: "The Red Tractor signifies that the ale has been brewed in the UK using malt and hops produced to high standards on the farm and checked by independent inspections. We hope other breweries will follow Purity's lead and commit to sourcing farm assured British ingredients."

Paul Halsey, sales director at Purity Brewing Company, said: "We were delighted to link up with the NFU on this project. Farmers' Harvest is a full flavoured beer with an ABV of 4.8% and a great balance of sweetness and bitterness. Its fruity taste really does deliver a memorable finish to a truly superb ale, which is the ideal way to toast 100 years of the NFU."