HOME brewing has been taken to a whole new level by the locals living around Bluestone Brewing Company at Newport.

Residents have recently turned their hand to coming up with a beer and have created a one-off green hop beer using hops grown in their own gardens.

The brewery, based at Tyriet Farm in Cilgwyn, is regularly used as a meeting place for the local Gardening Club, where the members swap seeds, plants and advice for their gardens.

Early last year, the brewery decided to try its hand at a one-off organic green hop beer with the help of the local community.

Bluestone Brewing Company purchased the plants for the gardening club members. One single variety was chosen - Cascade, a hop known for its citrus and grapefruit-type flavours.

Members were then asked to collect their hops and take them home to grow. Now, nearly two years down the line, the community has harvested their crop and brewed their first ever community hop beer.

With this beer, it’s necessary to brew within 24 hours of harvest as the hops, once picked, go off quickly. One local gardener, David Sears, was on hand to help the brewer get all the hops into the mash tun as there was a lot to get through.

Simon Turner, owner of Bluestone Brewing Co, said: “We were amazed at how many hops we had for the brew.

“You never really know whether a project like this will work, but everybody did such a good job and managed to grow so many more hops than we had expected. The beer tastes great and it’s been good fun making it too.”

The community hop growers helped to come up with the name and artwork for the bottle label and the brewers created the recipe. The chosen name was “Outcrop”.

This name will then stick with this beer for any future brews - a lasting community legacy.

Each gardener who contributed has received their very own box of Outcrop. The rest of the beer is now available to buy direct from the brewery or through its online shop.