Although far from common, beers have been aged in caves for eons… but it still seems kinda cool, right?

Here’s the deal…

Before the advent of refrigeration, lagers were cold-fermented in made-made or natural underground spaces where a consistent temperature could be maintained…Some brewers in the UK took advantage of the country’s mining industry to age their beers while others would turn to cavernous spaces under urban centers such as London…

For obvious reasons cave-aging largely disappeared with the arrival of refrigeration…But now one UK craft brewer has embraced a local practice that dates back to 1914.

Reigate, in Surry, England is famous for sprawling system of sand mines that lie deep beneath the city.

And last May, with the permission of Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and help from the Wealden Cave and Mine Society, the Pilgrim Brewery placed six 40-gallon whisky barrels filled with  a special imperial stout in the caves deep beneath the city.

Mellersh & Neale, a former Reigate brewery founded in the 16th century which ceased production in 1938, once used the city’s caves to store and mature its beers in the early 1900s.

And as Pilgrim Brewing, Surry’s oldest craft brewery, explained the Drinks Business after a period intense research they were able to base the cave-aged stout’s recipe on Mellersh & Neale’s original Oatmeal Stout which was first produced in 1914.

And just as in the past, the city’s caves afforded the Pilgrim Brewery an ideal environment, due to the fairly constant temperature of around 12 degrees centigrade (53 degrees Fahrenheit).

Named after the original Oatmeal Stout’s starting gravity (how alcohol content was once measured) of 1065, Pilgrim’s Imperial stout, Saracen 1065, spent over six months aging deep beneath the city.

Released just in time for the Christmas season, Pilgrim’s Saracen 1065 is available now direct from the brewery. But know that this is a very limited release with only 700 four-packs commercially available.