It was the sensation of Bristol back in 2014, which began with a bus driver swearing blind he saw a crocodile down the New Cut while his bus waited at the lights on Bedminster Bridge. And while sightings of the Bristol Crocodile have dwindled a bit in the eight years since, it’s still providing the inspiration for more things in the city.
Butcombe Brewery are the latest to be inspired, with a ‘Tall Tales Pale Ale’, complete with crocodile branding, inspired by the sightings of the mysterious creature in the River Avon in Bristol.
Read more: The 14 strangest animals you might find in Bristol
There were a few more sightings of a crocodile in the River Avon around Bedminster, Southville and Hotwells in the days and weeks after the moment a bus driver stopped his bus on the bridge in BS3.
The crocodile sightings were followed by a small caiman being caught in Chew Valley Lake three years later, but if there was a crocodile living in the River Avon in Bristol back in 2014, it’s clearly been priced out of the area and probably moved across the Bristol Channel to somewhere cheaper like Port Talbot or Newport.
And Bristol is no stranger to strange animals over the past few years, with a rough-necked monitor lizard being found wandering down the street in Withywood, seals and porpoises going on holiday up the River Avon in Hanham, deer roaming all the way into the city centre, an emu on the loose near Hartcliffe and beavers living on the river near Keynsham.
Now, the crocodile story still inspires - with Marc McGuigan, from Butcombe Brewery saying they wanted to launch a new beer and be ‘faithful to our Bristolian heritage’.
“We’re incredibly proud of Tall Tales, one of our biggest flavoured beers to date,” he said. “It’s a vibrant and flavoursome Pale Ale brought smack bang up to date, by our amazing brewing team, for today’s beer lover. We were inspired by the tale of Bristol’s mythical crocodile when creating Tall Tales.
“It’s important that we keep surprising our customers so what better way to show the innovation and creativity of our award-winning brewery, whilst remaining faithful to our Bristolian heritage, than launching this incredible new beer. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter. Who doesn’t love a Tall Tale every now and again?”
The beer is being launched on Thursday evening in the Whitmore Tap on Whiteladies Road, and will be available at the Bike Bar down on Bristol’s Harbourside, The Ostrich, Pig & Fiddle in Bath and at the Frog & Fiddle in Cheltenham.
Follow the latest updates on this story and others like it here.
