PRANCING PONY HOPWORK ORANGE
Love Actually is an unavoidable Christmas flick. But it's not like that for everyone. So don't forget to take a moment to share this frosty with a mate this festive season…because that’s love, actually.
Origin – Totness, South Australia
ABV- 4.8%
Size- 330mL bottle
Style- Pale Ale
It has become one of the most recognised logos in the world and a symbol of high performance. Ferrari's prancing horse is almost as iconic as the name itself. While the Prancing Pony doesn't quite have the immense clout of the global brand that's heralded the onset of almost cult fanaticism, you wouldn't know it when talking to the passionate drinkers from the Adelaide Hills about their local brewery. Given they lay claim to drinking the World's Best Beer, a title awarded to the India Red Ale at the International Beer Challenge London 2016, they've got every right to be enthusiastic.
Yet it's not only the imagery that shares some commonality. In a similar vein to Enzo Ferrari, who was a racer himself before being famed for building some of the world's most respected road and race cars, the co-founder and Head brewery of the Prancing Pony first started out as a beer lover and avid home brewer. Indeed, German ex-pat Frank Samson who, alongside wife Corinna Steeb opened the doors to Prancing Pony just outside the small town of Hahndorf, spent over three decades drinking the homebrews he created while working nine to five as a physicist and chemical engineer.
The story goes that after a long Sunday afternoon session enjoying a few of Franks – then fictitious - Pony Beers, a couple of close friends, said, “let's start a real brewery”. The flame was lit, and a few years later in late 2012, the doors were officially pulled open on the Prancing Pony Brewery. At the outset they established one of their core values as community, and be it a collaborative brew-day with Pink Boots, raising money for MS with a Karma Keg or backing mental wellness initiatives, they’ve been all-in for the past 7 years.
And from a big heart, comes a range of big beers full of long and lingering flavours, not the least of them this Hopwork Orange. First released as a special, it’s an exceptionally smashable APA with an uncanny blend of hops and oozing aromas of oranges, followed by an excursion through the fruit orchard. A mouthful reveals intense tangerine flavours, hints of honey melon, mango and pine. Some light malts balance the hefty 50 IBUs of hop bitterness, creating a beer that slides down easy without compromising on flavour.
Though not well known, the Ferrari's stallion was initially used by World War One pilot Francesco Baracca whose plane donned a prancing horse on its fuselage. If Frank, Corinna and the team kept producing beers this good, I’d suggest that the sky’s the limit for this Pony too!