Beer of the Day: Ossett Brewery White Rat

When the man behind one of Britain’s great cask pubs tells you there’s a beer worth ordering, you listen. Today’s Beer of the Day has been chosen by Steve from the Swan with Two Necks in Pendleton – a family-run Ribble Valley pub he and Christine have been running since 1987.

And Steve knows his way around a handpull. The Swan has been crowned CAMRA’s National Pub of the Year, has repeatedly been recognised among the country’s very best pubs and is the current Ribble Valley CAMRA Pub of the Year. Steve’s choice from behind that famous bar is Ossett White Rat – a 4% pale ale with plenty of bite, packed with citrus, tropical fruit and pine from its American hops. Crisp, bitter, seriously hoppy and extremely moreish, it’s exactly the sort of pint that has people spotting the rat on the pump clip and knowing what they’re ordering.

White Rat started life in 2011 as Lab Rat, a tiny test brew created in the basement of Huddersfield’s Rat & Ratchet. It was designed for the drinkers upstairs and was seriously hoppy by the standards of cask at the time. Those drinkers clearly knew a good thing when they tasted it: demand took off, White Rat became Ossett’s bestselling beer and today around five million pints a year are brewed.

So today we’re following Steve’s lead. Find the rat on the bar and give it a go. It’s modern, punchy, properly bitter cask that was ahead of the curve when it appeared 15 years ago – and judging by the number of people still ordering it, the rest of us have been happily catching up ever since.