Crafty Canary - Skyline Lager 5.0%

Skyline Lager is a 5.0% pale lager from Crafty Canary, the independent Welsh brewery and bottle shop based on the High Street in Cwmavon, in the Afan Valley near Port Talbot. It sits at the heart of Crafty Canary's own beer range, brewed on site alongside the stout, golden ale, IPA and other core beers that the shop is built around.

Crafty Canary both brews its own beer and sells a wider selection of beers from producers across Wales, making it as much a destination bottle shop as a working brewery. Cwmavon sits at the foot of the Afan Valley, right next to Afan Forest Park and the Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre, one of the best known trail centres in Wales, and it is hard to miss the connection between Crafty Canary's core range and the red graded trails that wind through the surrounding forest. Skyline shares its name with the Skyline trail out of Glyncorrwg, a long, technical route known for its views over the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, the Preseli hills, the Black Mountains and the South Wales coast, a fitting reference point for a local brewery pouring beer just down the valley.

As a 5.0% pale lager, Skyline is built for clean, crisp drinking rather than big flavour statements. Expect a pale gold colour, a light to medium body, and the gentle malt sweetness and restrained, grassy hop bitterness typical of a well made lager, finishing dry and refreshing rather than sweet or heavy. The moderate 5.0% ABV places it above a session lager but still well within easy drinking territory, and its clean profile is very much the point, a beer meant to be reached for without much deliberation.

Pale lagers like Skyline are best served well chilled, ideally around 3 to 5 degrees, in a tall glass to show off the colour and carbonation. Its clean character makes it a flexible food match, equally at home alongside fish and chips, a barbecue, or simply a bag of crisps on the sofa, and it works as well on its own after a day out in the hills as it does with food.

For a beer named after one of the standout descents in Afan Forest Park, Skyline Lager is a fittingly unfussy, drinkable beer rather than a showy one. It is a solid representation of what Crafty Canary is about as a small Welsh brewery, straightforward, locally rooted beer made to be enjoyed rather than picked apart, and a reasonable place to start for anyone new to the Crafty Canary range.