Take two opinionated hopheads with a manifesto, let them loose on a brew kit and maturate. What do you end up with?

Steel City Brewing. The backstory can be found here; suffice to say this is a story about a couple of guys who love hops, enthuse about hops, believe there ought to be more hoppy beers and so decided to get off their arses and brew a beer full of the damn stuff.

And how did it turn out? From my sampling tonight at the launch event in Sheffield, surprisingly well. Why surprising? Because I've drank with Dave and Gazza and I know that they don't just love a hoppy beer - they like a glass so crammed with Humulus lupulus that noses bleed spontaneously. Their first brew, Hop Manifesto, proved to be commendably restrained - certainly hoppy on the nose (Amarillo dry hopped, natch) but the Centennial, Cascade and Chinook in the body were pegged back, albeit perhaps by accident rather than design. Dave said that they'd over-watered the brew, so the ABV and intensity dropped from expected levels.

It's a good, clean hopped beer - as a first brew, it puts down an assured marker. They know they can go hoppier - and a tad more maltier, because rippling-muscle hops without a malt backbone would just make for a pongy infusion (Brewdog Nanny State, anyone?)

There were two other versions of Hop Manifesto on the Harlequin bar tonight; a none-dry-hopped version bearing the catchy name Bez Suchého Chmele and a lemon-zested variant for uber-scooper Brian Moore's 70th birthday, Life of Brian. The latter was a huge Toilet Duck mess; the former I found to be a better drink than Hop Manifesto itself. Why? Hop Manifesto's Amarillo dry-hop was enticing, but the full-on-ness expectation wasn't followed through into the flavour. Whereas Bez Suchého Chmele just gets on with the job of being a clean, lean hop delivery system - a tad more Maris wouldn't go amiss, but there was still a balance that surprised and delighted.

So, Steel City Brewing say they "know what hops are for". They're not far wrong. 'Underpowering' the first brew may be a salutary lesson - slap those hops in, lads, just don't forget that those fermentable sugars don't just appear out of fresh air. Please, please, pretty please do brew a hoppy stout this winter (I'm always glad to assist by standing around, making tea, offering sarcasm etc). And - lemons. Always go for half as much as you think you need. Then half again.

(As our roving reporter photo at the head of this article shows, sometimes Dave Unpronounceable does actually appear to work for a living. Be assured that he was charging for that beer. We were in Yorkshire, after all).

PS - 'nuff respect to Pete Roberts at the Brew Company, where Steel City are let loose to do their stuff.