By BARRY SHLACHTER

Star-Telegram Staff Writer Dallas TX

There's been Billy Beer - named for President Carter's late, trouble-prone, bubba brother -- and Rattlesnake Beer and countless other less-than-distinguished novelty beers through the years.

Growing up in Cleveland, I heard the radio jingle for heavily hyped, short-lived Frothingslosh Beer: "Oh my gosh, it's Frothingslosh!"

Now suddenly on North Texas shelves comes Monty Python Holy Grail Ale -- "tempered over burning witches" and named for the British comedy group's 1975 hit movie.

Is someone joking here?

Most certainly. Yet this gimmicky-looking product of Yorkshire's 14-year-old, award-winning Black Sheep Brewery is quite drinkable.

I drained a 500-ml (1-pint, 0.9-ounce) bottle sooner than I had realized while grazing on sembei -- soy sauce-covered, seaweed-wrapped rice crackers

-- and comfortably watching PBS' Colonial House reality show on how a group of people endured months of deprivation, filth and each other in an attempt to emulate our Pilgrim forebears. (They didn't have cable, central heating or much tolerance for free thinkers, but they consumed a prodigious amount of beer.)

In 1999, the Monty Python crew had the idea of creating suds suitable for the 30th anniversary of their cult comedy show's first airing on the BBC. The inimitable troupe takes its beer seriously. Python Terry Jones helped start a microbrewery in Hereford in 1977. "I like drinking," Jones explained in Britain's 2003 Good Beer Guide. "It's a litmus test for civilization."

They turned to Black Sheep of Masham, Yorkshire, founded by Paul Theakstone, a "black-sheep" heir to the revered Theakstone Brewery, maker of Old Peculier. He opposed selling the family-owned brewery but was outgunned by relatives who sold out to Scottish & Newcastle, a brewing giant, which closed the venerable establishment and kept the famous brands. So he started his own brewery, which his wife named.

Quaintly or not, his beers are fermented in Yorkshire square vessels, including six made of slate. Holy Grail, like its sibling brands, is made by balancing Maris Otter malted barley and Goldings hops, creating a deceptively light, almost fruity initial taste and a complex, tangy finish.

The beer pours an orangy amber with a healthy white head that leaves an absurdly stubborn lacing about the glass. It's 4.7 percent alcohol by volume. The suggested retail price is $3.49.

Although the Python brew has been around for five years, it only made its way to Texas in 2004 because of, among other things, the state's lengthy approval process, says importer Dominique Levesque, a Frenchman living in Boston who is an owner of Santa Monica, Calif.-based EuroBrews.

No one was in at the brewery but the chief accountant when I rang recently: Everyone else had gone to pick up an international award for another of its brews.

Steven Constable says Holy Grail has been successful in the North American and Scandinavian markets. "We've seen rapid growth in our exports despite the strength of the pound against other currencies," he says.

And though it has yet to garner a major award, don't call Monty Python Holy Grail a gimmick beer.

"It may have a novelty label, but as far as we are concerned, what's in the bottle is crucial," said Constable, who, unlike devastating Python portrayals of accountants, is not too dull to have an opinion.

Holy Grail is available at some Majestic stores, Hall's, Central Market, Bottle King, Kings on Granbury Road and West Berry, Fossil Creek and Liq-o-rama.

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