Majestic customers choose ‘Naked Ladies’ beer for core range

Majestic is launching Naked Ladies across its estate – a London beer chosen by its customers that will go into national distribution.

The beer is the winner of a competition to add a popular regional beer to the retailer’s permanent range which was launched in January.

The beer was selected from a short list of eight regional beers that topped a consumer tasting competition run across the retailers’ stores during its Oktoberfest celebration of British and craft beers last year.

Naked Ladies, which is already in local distribution, was selected by the 200-strong Beer Team – a team of customers selected by individual Majestic stores.

The beer, which will be available throughout Majestic’s stores as well as online, comes from micro-brewery Twickenham Fine Ales, being inspired by and named after the statues of water nymphs in a local landmark.

The brewery was founded in 2004 and claims to be at the forefront of the revival of the craft brewing scene and an early adopter of American hops. It can brew around 28,000 pints a week in total from its new brewhouse, which opened in 2012.

The 4.4% ABV hoppy and full-bodies golden ale uses Pilgrim, Celeia and Chinook hops, and was described by one of the Majestic Beer Team as “a luscious, well hopped delightful example of a craft beer”.

Majestic has upped its focus on craft beers in recent years after seeing sales of small batch beers rise around 164% year-on-year aftering moving away from mass-produced beers two years ago. Recent results show that in the ten weeks to 4 January 2016, it saw craft beer sales increase by 55% from the same period the previous year, to £1.1m.

At the launch of the competition, Majestic’s CEO Rowan Gormley described the retailer was at the forefront of the “beer revolution”.

Matt Pym, head buyer at Majestic, described the new addition as a “fantastic”beer, and added that Majestic “isn’t just about wine”/ “We have a better selection of craft beer and local beer than anyone else and the best people to guide customers through the range,”  he said.