Award-winning Bell’s Baby Hugh christened in a beer barrel

Tradition is all to the Macaulays, whose Aldworth pub The Bell Inn has been in the family for 250 years.

Last year landlord Hugh’s son James, perhaps better known for sporting the no 3 shirt for Newbury Blues rugby team, set to work on developing a nano brewery in a wooden outbuilding behind the CAMRA award-winning pub.

And so Aldworth Brewing Company was born.

Regulars had speculated on whether James and his partner Ali’s first-born would arrive before the first brew came on tap to wet the baby’s head.

At the beginning of December the long-anticipated cask of ‘Five Giants’ was served at the bar, followed just two days later by the arrival of pint-sized Hugh Angus Michael Macaulay.

“It all came at the same time,” said James. “So it seemed logical that, five months on, ‘Baby Hugh’ should be christened with holy water in a beer barrel rather than the stone font at the village church.

Parish vicar the Rev Grant Fensome had been unfazed by the unusual request. “He was totally up for it,” said James.

Mr Fensome explained: “Baby Hugh's parents, James and Ali, came to the vicarage to discuss the arrangements for his Christening shortly after Christmas and told me that they found out that they were expecting Hugh the same day that James first set up the Aldworth Brewing Co Ltd with his partners. What a day that would have been!

“With having such an obvious and strong connection to brewing business and being part of the Macaulay family of The Bell Inn, Aldworth, I thought it could be symbolic to Christen baby Hugh using an old beer barrel - after all it matters not how we are baptised, just more important that we are. It turns out that the barrel we used on the day held inside it James' very first cask from his very first brew - and so it was very symbolic we used it to baptise his and Ali's first child.

“It was a wonderful privilege for me to Christen baby Hugh. I had blessed James' first batch of beer at The Bell Inn, and now I have blessed his and Alisons first child. Far from being a 'gimmick', this Christening was filled with strong and meaningful symbolism for a wonderful local family. God was most certainly praised and glorified, and Baby Hugh was welcomed into the church in quite a memorable way!”

With having such an obvious and strong connection to brewing business and being part of the Macaulay family of The Bell Inn, Aldworth, I thought it could be symbolic to Christen baby Hugh using an old beer barrel - after all it matters not how we are baptised, just more important that we are

And so St Mary’s Church – home to the medieval stone effigies the Aldworth Giants – was packed with guests to share the happy occasion on Easter Saturday.

Five Giants, the name chosen for James’ first beer is “a nod to village history” as well as the five friends who came together to help brew it.

And his son takes the names of his two grandfathers – Hugh Macaulay and Ali’s father Michael.

Pictures GEOFF FLETCHER