MONTH of hard work and a major financial investment reached their climax for Dartmoor Brewery this month, with the launch of its newest ale — Legend.

The new beer is now available throughout Devon and Cornwall — and the brewers are keeping their fingers crossed that the ale lives up to its name.

Mark Shackleton, sales director for Dartmoor Brewery at Princetown, said: 'We wanted to create a unique beer, different to all the mainstream cask ales, and with a totally original name and image.

'After visits to the English hop farms, several trial brews, tastings and six months of trying to get the name registered, at last Legend became a reality.'

The brewery has invested around £180,000 in the business over the last few months, including the installation of two huge six-metre high fermenting vessels.

The new ale, brewed from Devon-grown malted barley, English hops and Dartmoor water, is described as 'a classic cask-conditioned beer, smooth, full flavoured and balanced with a delicious crispy malt fruit finish'. Golden brown in colour, it has an aroma of freshly baked bread, with a hint of spice.

The launch of Legend is accompanied by investment in stylish new pump clips and glasses.

Mark said Dartmoor Brewery hoped Legend would capture the imagination of younger drinkers, making it cool to drink real ale. At 4.4ABV, it strikes a new strength in the brewery's range of beers — Dartmoor IPA being 4.0 and Jail Ale at 4.8.

Mark said: 'We believe Legend, with its unique image, will be the first real ale with charisma — a cult beer of the future for the young at heart, whether you are 20 or 90.'

Head brewer and managing director Simon Loveless said his aim had been to come up with a completely different West Country beer, and also one using only English hops.

'Imported American hops are used by a lot of breweries in trying to create weird and wonderful lager-style beers,' he said.

'The two main ingredients of beer are malted barley and hops. The former gives beer its body and malted Horlicks flavours, the latter the bite, fruit tastes and aromas.'

Simon did several brews, combining different quantities of the raw materials, and using different hop varieties.

'We had blind tastings on these different brews and fortunately, one totally outshone the others in tastes, especially the aftertaste — a long-lasting, lovely smooth malty fruitiness.

'We really do think we have got a winning beer and one which lives up to its name!'

Legend was this week delivered to pubs throughout Devon and Cornwall — with three special 'Legend Nights' being organised next week at the Carey Arms in Babbacome, the Gog and Magog in Plymouth and Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.