Siren Craft Brew Lumina Session IPA, 330ml

Product Information

Bitter, a British style of pale ale, comes in a huge variety of colours, types and strengths from 3% to 7% ABV. Sub-types include light ale (low alcohol bitter, often bottled), session bitter (up to 4.1%; includes IPA), best or special (strength between 4.2% and 4.7%), premium or strong (4.8% or over) and golden ale (summer ale). Porter Ode to the Golden State a 4.8% Californian Common. Copper coloured body from a complex malt blend. Lashings of toffee and caramel sweetness whilst the lager yeast makes it easy drinking.

Lumina was an epiphany moment for Siren, a coming together of experience, experimentation, and evolution to create our most accessible session beer ever, with poise and adventure of universal appeal. It’s that feeling of epiphany that first sparked the ‘energy’ of the Lumina personality. A central burning energy source emanates movement across the canvas, with themes of luminosity and navigation weaving in and out of the sky. Technically we have worked with Arbor before, but only as part of a group, so this beer feels overdue and we were excited to be able to team up with them. We’re seeing beers around 3.4% as being very important to us this year, and are working hard to make the best beers we can at the strength. Arbor have done an amazing job for many years at making balanced, sessionable cask beers in particular, so it was a natural fit here. Extra Pale malt gives us a beautifully light drink, with flavour that punches above its weight. Lumina is a beer influenced by modern tastes as much as it aims to inspire them. Those same hops were joined by Chinook in the whirlpool, so in drinking there’s a welcome edge of pine and grapefruit flavour to the overall juicy profile. The mouthfeel is soft with layers of oats (making up around 15% of the grist) helping this, along with some nice body. There’s just enough perceived bitterness there to freshen up the palate and get you ready for the next sip.

Siren Craft Brew is heavily inspired by the sirens of Greek mythology. Just as the Siren’s voices were said to entwine into a complex, layered melody, so do the ingredients that go into making great beer. Lumina is no different, a central burning energy with themes of wonder, luminosity and navigation weaving in and out of the night’s sky mirroring the shooting combination of flavours. It’s sometimes hard to get excited about lower-strength beers, but this is the realm in which a brewery’s quality shines through. Unlike double IPAs or imperial stouts, there’s no decadent sweetness or mouth-coating hoppiness to hide behind with a drink like this. Any imperfection is easy to identify, and will be instantly pounced upon by the most snobbish of Untappd-dwelling beer fiends. But with Lumina there are no such imperfections to speak of. Chief lover of the Simcoe hop, our former Head Brewer, Kyle, played a huge part in our professionalisation during his 5 years with Siren. Creative Projects and ideas were always at the forefront, including a fabulous beer brewed for the Van Gogh exhibition for the Tate, along with projects like Project Barista. Kyle and his wife Kacie are now running their own brand, Kings & Daughters, which should soon have its own thriving brewpub. Crisp Pale Ale is a style Kyle has been developing. It’s clean, snappy and makes for classy drinking. We’ve also trialled Aromozyme here, an enzyme that is designed to promote biotransformation (this might be a whole other blog to itself…) - so we’re looking for as much pleasurable aroma and flavour as we can possibly get from the hop additions. Thanks to Kacie for the beautiful illustration.

A copper coloured, aromatic beer brewed as a traditional American IPA made with pale crystal malts and Cascade and Centennial American hops for a modern, citrusy finish.

The best of the rest

And if you are wondering what the hell is going on with the label, all of Siren's cans are heavily inspired by the sirens of Greek mythology.

The Siren Craft Brew range is firmly rooted in Greek mythology. It is said the sirens’ voices entwine into a complex, layered melody, and so do the ingredients that go into making great beer.

Celebrating 10 years of Siren

Siren Craft Brew is a trailblazer in the drinks industry. Based in Finchampstead, Berkshire, the brand is on a mission to introduce modern and flavour-forward beers for everyone to adore. Lumina, however, started life long before that blog. It was in 2019 that we identified a gap between 3.6% Yu Lu and 5.6% Soundwave. Our ever popular rotational hop series, “Suspended in…” had been gracing keg and cask pumps for some time and we wanted something like that in the flagship lineup.

Lumina joins a whole host of other IPAs Siren makes, including Sound Wave IPA, Futurist (another gluten-free IPA that is in our best gluten-free beers list) and its brut IPA, On The Bubble. So, how about that? This project has tested us as a brewery, but in doing so has shown us just how smart, committed and determined our team is. (To give it some context, we also had our Anniversary releases to work on, plus the installation of a new kegging line, right in the middle of all this.) We’re hugely grateful to Beer52 for the opportunity to do this. It’s been a completely unique opportunity for a brewery of our small size to work on something this big, with beers that will go so far. To be given the trust to make these beers in our own way is a big compliment. Thanks to everyone involved, and in particular the collaborating breweries who were so generous with their time and insight for this project. This is a refreshing, crisp and light yellow lager with a bitter, hoppy flavour. Pilsner originated in the Czech Republic and tends to be light in colour, ranging from light straw to golden, with strong hoppy, spicy and floral flavours. Some of the most iconic beers derive from the pilsner style, including Budweiser. Wheat beer The session IPA has been years in the making for Siren Craft Brew (you could say Siren has been waiting for the stars to align!), adding a beer to its flagship range is always meteoric and so the master brewers wanted to make sure they were bringing something new to this solar system. Siren has spent many moons experimenting with different combinations of the best quality malts and hops to hone and perfect its Lumina recipe.As previously hinted, we’re celebrating Lumina with some very special bundles on the online store. In fact, one of them is so special there are only 5 available! Our founder, Darron said: “It’s a real challenge as a small business right now to cut through, whether that’s getting into pubs where the big brewers have tied up all the access and restricted choice for consumers, or online where we see the big social media platforms unwilling to show our followers organic posts. #LuminaHour is an example of what can be achieved when the amazing beer community comes together, raising an incredible amount of money in the process.” Studio Parr had already given us our incredible rebranding, the previous year. Our Sirens were brought to life in vibrant, expansive and expressive canvasses that told a story to themselves. Sitting right in the middle of the flagship range in terms of ABV, Lumina was to be the shining light. We wanted it to be an explosion of energy and flavour and the design was to reflect that. Siren dry-hop Lumina with Azacca, Mosaic, Ekuanot and Hallertau Blanc. Hopping this late in the process is the reason the aroma shoots out of the can so immediately, bursting with mango, pineapple, and orangey notes