A CUMBRIAN craft brewery has harnessed an exotic fruit from South America for its latest bottled beer.

Hawkshead Brewery 's Tonka, launched as a limited-release on draught ale last autumn, is brewed using the tonka bean, the fruit of the cumaru tree.

Such was its popularity that Hawkshead is launching a bottled Tonka on Friday at The Beer Hall at its brewery at Staveley near Kendal.

The tonka bean is used by chefs for its complex scent and nut and fruit flavours, which work equally well in a beer.

Head brewer Matt Clarke aged the dark, velvety ale – an imperial porter which sits at 8.5 per cent ABV – with cacao nibs, adding to its diverse character.

He said: “This is a complex beer with many layers of flavour – chocolate, vanilla, coconut, almond, bitter cherry, rolling into the richness of dark malts.” 

Hawkshead Brewery has been brewing traditional beers with a modern twist since 2002.

It started in an old barn at Hawkshead but outgrew the premises in four years and moved to its present site at Mill Yard, Staveley, where it built a new brewery in Chadwick’s Mill, an old wood-turning mill.

Drinkers in the north of the county get the chance to sample Hawkshead's beers this week.

It is hosting a 'meet the brewer' event at the Woodrow Wilson in Botchergate, Carlisle, from 6-8pm on Thursday, and an in-store tasting at Cranstons' Food Hall in Ullswater Road, Penrith, from 11am-3pm on Friday.