Whoops!

Long to rain over us ...

Greene King has decided to take obsequiousness to new depths by producing a beer called Purple Reign to mark our head of state's 90th birthday. Regrettably, on the actual day it was released, the singer and musician Prince, who wrote and recorded the song Purple Rain in 1984, was found to have died.

I've seen this tweet addressed to Greene King by Hannah Davidson of the East London Brewing Company: "please don't name your next guest beer after Sir David Attenborough".

The beer is made using sweet pale malt from East Anglian barley and English Challenger, Pilgrim and First Gold hops which sounds quite interesting, but if it's anything like Greene King IPA, it will be utterly dreary and devoid of any interesting flavour whatsoever. I seriously doubt it will be a worthy tribute to a multi-talented and versatile singer, songwriter and musician.