British Breweries wearing the Poppy with Pride

Three of Britain’s most innovative breweries have joined forces with the Royal British Legion to support the Poppy Appeal this year. XT Brewing of Buckinghamshire, Raw Brewery of Chesterfield and the Big Hand Brewery of Wrexham are collaborating on a very special beer during the month of Armistice. Each brewery is making the ‘Lest We Forget’ ale locally and following the same recipe then contributing a cut of their takings to the Poppy Appeal.

The collaboration between these breweries and the RBL with the Lest-We-Forget is inspirational and shows how forward thinking local producers can work together to help those who helped us in the defence of freedom. The members of the collaboration are all very proud to be working together and hope to extend the project further in 2016 to include more innovative craft breweries from around the country.

Back in 2013 the Royal British Legion Marlow branch and XT Brewery, created a unique charity beer to raise both awareness and much needed funds for the Royal British Legion (RBL) Poppy Appeal. Brewed for the month of Armistice the beer was a great success and contributed over £3000 to the Legion in its first year.

The beer aptly named ‘Lest We Forget’ at 4.2% is a red malty beer brewed with aromatic English malts and balanced with hops from around the Commonwealth including Galaxy from Australia, Admiral from England and Pacific Gem from New Zealand.

Encouraged by the success of the first year,  XT and The RBL worked together again in 2014 and released the beer once more to mark the month of Armistice and raise funds for the appeal. The beer spread its wings and was shipped further afield using the combined resources of other local brewers to help distribute the Lest into even more pubs and clubs.

Now into its third year two more breweries have joined the collaboration. The Raw Brewery and the Big Hand Brewery have thrown their considerable brewing experience behind the project. They are making the Lest for their local pubs and RBL clubs and raising even more funds for the Poppy Appeal.

Lest We Forget - three words renown across the world in remembrance of those who fought, and those who died fighting for freedom. It means that we will never forget! We honour the period of remembrance by wearing poppies, a flower that bloomed throughout the fields of battle grounds in France and Belgium during World War One. The poem, ‘Flanders Field’, written by Canadian physician, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae after witnessing his friend and fellow soldier struck down in the midst of battle in the First World War.  The poem inspired Moina Michael to use the poppy as a symbol of remembrance in 1918 and was adopted by the US Legion in 1920 and the British Legion in 1921      

The Royal British Legion, founded in 1921, is the UK’s leading Service charity. They provide practical care advice and support to serving members of the Armed Forces, veterans of all ages and their families. The Royal British Legion boasts some 360,000 members, they are not only a campaigning organisation challenging those in authority, with a fund-raising organisation reliant on a huge network of volunteers, but the RBL are the nation’s custodian of the Remembrance