Elbow room at the Mason's

It was a good singaround in the Mason's last night, accompanied by a real log fire, ham butties, cheese & crackers, and pints of build a rocket boys! It's a beer created by the band elbow and brewed by Robinson's of Stockport. I saw an item about it in a CAMRA mag a while ago; the band seemed very pleased about having a beer made to their own specifications. It's pleasant enough and golden and it has some of the characteristic taste that you expect from a Robinson's beer. Like the beers of a lot of regional breweries that have leapt on the golden beer bandwagon, it's unremarkable, inoffensive and surprisingly successful. But then, I never expected Thwaites Wainwright, a similar - though for my money better - beer, to become the brewing phenomenon that it has. build a rocket boys! will satisfy a lot of ordinary real ale drinkers and some non-real ale drinkers, but not those who seek the "innovative" (i.e. with loads of hops). But breweries can't live by such drinkers alone.

The pump clip is a CD of the band's 2011 album build a rocket boys! Brenda, the licensee of the Mason's, tells me that they now scratch the CDs before using them as pump clips because so many were being pinched. It was originally intended as a limited edition (one hit wonder?), but is now Robinson's fourth best selling beer. A share of the profits goes to Oxfam's East Africa Appeal, and it has so far raised more then £25,000.

No one referred to it as build a rocket boys! during the evening. We all just asked for a pint of elbow, even Brenda who eventually gave up trying to correct us all.