Snowdon - Craft Lager

Snowdon Craft Lager is a 4.3% ABV pale lager from Snowdon Craft Beer, a North Wales brewery that built its early reputation on this beer in particular. Described by the brewery as crisp, clean and trailblazing, it is brewed to have a more noticeable hop character than most mainstream lagers, using European noble hop varieties to give it genuine flavour rather than simple, neutral refreshment.

Snowdon Craft Beer was formerly known as Great Orme Brewery, which began brewing in a small shed near Glan Conwy, Colwyn Bay, in the mid-2000s. The lager that would become Snowdon Craft Lager started life as a test brew in 2011, launched with little expectation, but it quickly became the brewery's single best-selling beer through the following decade, reflecting a broader shift in British drinking habits towards more flavourful, craft-brewed lagers. That success eventually led the brewery to rebrand around its best known beer, becoming Snowdon Craft Beer in 2019, before later relocating to a larger site near Conwy and Llandudno Junction.

The lager is brewed using water drawn from the Snowdonia region alongside European noble hops, the classic hop family associated with traditional Continental lager brewing, prized for their delicate, spicy, floral character rather than the punchy citrus or resinous notes of American hop varieties. This gives Snowdon Craft Lager a fuller, more rounded flavour than a typical mass-produced lager, while still keeping the beer pale, clean and easy to drink. At 4.3% ABV it sits at a fairly standard lager strength, suited to regular drinking rather than being either especially light or unusually strong.

As a fuller-flavoured pale lager, Snowdon Craft Lager suits the same range of food as most classic lagers, working well with lighter dishes such as grilled chicken, fish and chips, and mild curries, as well as being a straightforward match for pub snacks and barbecued food. Its noble hop character also makes it a reasonable match for lightly spiced dishes, where the hop bitterness can help balance the heat. It is best served well chilled, in the traditional lager style.

Given its history as the beer that reshaped Snowdon Craft Beer's identity, Snowdon Craft Lager is worth trying as a reference point for what the brewery does best, a genuinely flavourful, noble-hopped lager brewed in North Wales rather than a generic mass-market alternative.