PRANCING PONY MISS KITTY
I couldn't care less. Good luck with that. Not my problem. There’s are a million ways to tell someone you don't give a damn. Yet there’s never been a more important time than now to give a rat’s arse, so grab this beer and check in on a mate’s emotional state.
Origin – Totness, South Australia
ABV – 4.8%
Size – 375m can
Style – Schwarzbier
The Italian prancing horse is one of the most recognised symbols in the world. With billions of fanatic followers, Ferrari has the eminence this filly from the Adelaide Hills can only dream of. Yet trying telling the lovers of the Prancing Pony that! Based on the reverence for their local, most would likely choose to share a beer with the owner and founder Frank Samson rather than Enzo Ferrari every day of the week and twice on Sunday. And they've got every right to be enthusiastic given they lay claim to drinking the World's Best Beer, a title awarded to the India Red Ale at the International Beer Challenge in 2016.
The story of Prancing Pony, however, began many years prior. Indeed, German ex-pat Samson, alongside wife Corinna Steeb, who 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 Sunday session enjoying a few of Frank’s Pony Beers, a couple of close friends said, ‘let's start a real brewery'. The fire was lit, and a few years later, in 2012, the doors were opened on the Prancing Pony Brewery.
At the outset, they established one of their core values as nurturing community - be it a collaborative brew-day with Pink Boots Society, raising money for MS with a Karma Keg or backing mental wellness initiatives, they’ve been all-in for the past eight years. From a big heart comes a range of big full flavoured beers, not the least of them this Miss Kitty - a throwback to Samson's heritage. First released as a special, it’s a complex yet refreshing black lager styled on a traditional German Schwarzbier. Deceptively lighter than its dark hue might suggest, Kitty articulates balance, drinkability and respect for the style. It’s a combination that leads to sweet malt aromas over toasted hazelnuts. Holding an almost creamy mouthfeel thanks to a dark wheat addition, there is a gentle drying finish with little in the way of bitterness.
Before Ferrari, WWI pilot Francesco Baracca’s plane donned the stallion on its fuselage. If the team keep producing beers as stunning as Miss Kitty, I’d suggest that the sky’s the limit for this Pony too!
