Special Beer Brewed To Celebrate Strength of Apache Helicopter

A Suffolk-based micro-brewery has celebrated the strength and power of the Apache attack helicopter by brewing a brand new beer which will also help to raise money for a military charity.>> Bartrams Brewery has brewed a new ale - called AH 6.4 - a 6.4% strength beer in honour of the Apache attack helicopter, technically known as the AH-64. And the design of the label incorporates the colours, the "Red and Green", of 4 Regiment Army Air Corps and lists the Regiment's battle honours.>> The beer, which started out as a one-off present for when a commanding officer was posted, has now become such a success that it will be permanently brewed with 10p from each bottle going towards a military charity.>> The story begins with Robert Perkin-Ball, a civilian air traffic controller at Wattisham Airfield, Suffolk, the home of the Apache in the UK. Based at Wattisham are two Army Air Corps regiments, 3 and 4 Regiment, both of which have flown the Apache on operations in Afghanistan. Mr Perkin-Ball happened to be chatting to Marc Bartram, who runs Bartram's Brewery, at a Christmas fair. He said:>> "I got talking to Marc and you know how the light comes on in your head and I thought it would be rather nice to have a beer made based on the AH-64 designation for Apache. So I said to Marc, 'Can you make beer any strength?'">> By coincidence, the Commanding Officer of 4 Regiment Army Air Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Neil Dalton, was also coming to the end of his two-year posting at Wattisham and looking for an outgoing gift to give to his Regiment and the two men agreed the beer would be ideal to present at a leaving dinner on 20 September 2008. So they got to work on a design for the bottle, with Mr Perkin-Ball sending his designs for the label to Lt Col Dalton, who by this summer was serving in Afghanistan.