Hambleton Bard have recently introduced a brand new range of floppy pouch beer kits that contain between 1.8 and 2.1kgs of malt extract and make 40 pints of Lager, Pilsner, IPA, Yorkshire Bitter, Brown Ale, Mild or Stout. Each kit is made up of specially selected Malt Extracts from a variety of specialist malsters (ie these are not Munton's Kits) and matched with an appropriate strain of yeast in an effort to produce a more authentic version of the particular beer style than would be available from kits made with generic brewing yeast.

The Hambleton Bard range is easy to use, though if you sqeeze the pouch, or roll it up like a toothpaste tube, to get all of the extract out, it can be quite hard to open it up again in order to rinse it with hot water. I made up one of the 1.8kg Yorkshire Bitter Kits in March using bottled water and a Muntons 1kg Beer Enhancer rather than brewing sugar. The instructions suggest waiting 10 days for the gravity to drop to1014 or below, though mine was there within a week so I barrelled it on 23rd March and left it to mature.

I started serving it about a week ago and it has a dark straw/pale copper colour, is smooth and slightly sweet, with a gentle bitterness as an aftertaste.

I personally prefer richer bodied, fairly malty beers and even with the beer enhancer this was a bit too light for me, though as an example of a light bodied Yorkshire Bitter, I would say it was pretty accurate and well worth a try.

As it has been selling well since I started offering it as a sample, I suspect our customers agree. 

You may have seen similar pouches in "The Range" under the "Make your Own" brand, but these do not contain the same Malt Extract/Yeast combinations, are considerably more expensive than the Hambleton Bard ones and, according to several reviewers, do not produce such good results. Ritchies Products are shortly due to release a similar range, similarly packed, under the "Simply" brand name.