A University of Nottingham brewing science student and Nottingham’s Castle Rock Brewery have combined their expertise to create what tasters describe as the perfect beer to honour one of the University of Nottingham’s Nobel Prize winners.
The ‘Sir Peter Mansfield’ beer is a Castle Rock Brewery Nottinghamian Celebration Ale. It is the latest in a series of beers brewed to celebrate the name and achievements of native and adopted sons and daughters of Nottingham.
The beer will be officially launched at the Vat and Fiddle pub in Nottingham at 5.30pm on Friday 26 October 2018.
Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield was instrumental in the discovery and development of the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. The Mansfield beer is the fourth Nottinghamian Celebration Ale of 2018 and follows, ‘George Brough’ and ‘Helen Watts’, beers marking the motor cycle maker and 100 years of the women’s suffrage.
Putting his MSc into practice
Matthew Davies, who completed his MSc at the International Centre for Brewing Science in the School of Biosciences, worked with Dr Rod White in the University brewing team and Castle Rock Brewer Dan Mason to develop the recipe and produce this latest celebration tipple.
Matt said: “Working with Castle Rock on this celebration beer allowed me to put into practice what I had learned in the past year. What better opportunity than to work with an experienced brewer at a well-established brewery, all in celebration of Sir Peter Mansfield and his achievements.”
Matt is now working as the assistant brewer at Robinson’s in Stockport and has plans to set up his own brewery in the not too distant future.
The special recipe of spice and herbs
For the ‘Sir Peter Mansfield’ beer, they created and tasted three distinct recipes. Their winner proved to be a five-malt bitter with four hop varieties added at stages through the brew.
Lewis Townsend, Head of Marketing at Castle Rock Brewery, said: “All we asked them for was something to honour a great man, like him unique and definitely distinguishable as a ‘Nottinghamian’. This unique combination has created tastes of green tea, spice, herb, and flowers.”
Lady Mansfield’s support
Rules for the brewing test were agreed at the instigation of Sir Peter’s widow, Lady Mansfield, during a tour of Castle Rock Brewery earlier this year.
She said: “Peter wasn’t that big a drinker but he did regularly take a lunchtime break at the University Club, the Hemsley. Appropriately enough, his choice was a pint of Mansfield bitter.”
Lady Mansfield was accompanied on the tour by Professor Peter Morris CBE, a former PhD student of Sir Peter’s who went on to head the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre at the University of Nottingham and Professor David Cook, Head of Brewing Science at the University’s Sutton Bonington Campus.
Sir Peter Mansfield’ is available in pubs across the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre
The Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre has grown into a major interdisciplinary, cross-faculty centre for innovative imaging in experimental and translational medicine. After undergoing a £9m investment programme last year the centre is now equipped with the very latest imaging facilities for innovative research in obesity, gastroenterology, liver disease, metabolism (including sports medicine), orthopaedics, respiratory medicine, mental health, hearing and radiological sciences, as well as new developments in imaging techniques and equipment. It brings MRI research facilities on University Park and the Queen’s Medical Centre together under one virtual roof.
