A SILCHESTER brewery has created a special ale in honour of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

The dark ale – HowlinGale – was officially launched at an event at Wild Weather brewery.

Alan ‘Howling Laud’ Hope, the leader of the political party, was among the invited guests at the unveiling of the special brew.

The event at the brewery, off Chapel Lane, was hosted by brewery owner Mike Tempest and his wife Karen.

They and their guests later travelled to Reading, where they were served the special ale at three real ale pubs where it is available.

HowlinGale has been created as part of the Co-ALE-ition Ale range, which was launched in September last year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the wacky political party.

HowlinGale is the sixth ale to be created and, since the launch of the range eight months ago, more than 8,000 pints of Co-ALE-ition ale have been consumed at 74 pubs across seven different counties.

One of the ales will soon be available at the Stranger’s Bar in the House of Commons, and it is hoped that by the General Election in May 2015, there will be 10 special ales on offer, brewed by 10 different microbreweries.

CAMRA member Derrill Carr, who has been working on the range of ales with the breweries and the party from the start, said the Silchester event was a great success.

He said: “HowlinGale was served in excellent condition at all three of the pubs, and there was a party atmosphere as everybody embraced the first-ever Loony Party pub crawl.”

He added that each of the ales had a very distinctive character, saying: “They are each every different in terms of beer style, colour and strength, and they have helped to showcase the wonderful choices available to real ale drinkers in this part of the country.”