A BEER produced by the multi-award-winning Irwell Works Brewery, in Ramsbottom, is being served to MPs, and their guests, at the Strangers Bar, in the Palace of Westminster.

The pale ale, called Britannia’s Best, is a renamed version of The Britannia Coconutter beer rejected by parliamentary authorities after they said the pump clip, showing the made-up black faces of the morris dancers of the same name, ‘may have caused offence’. The beverage was nominated for the politicians’ haunt by Rossendale MP Jake Berry.

Last week, 72 pints of the same beer, featuring the original name and imagery, sold out at a beer festival at Bacup’s Crown Inn in just four hours, making it the most popular of 26 ales featured on the day.