Aged Beers: Age difference

The next stage of the beer revolution is here -  "It's what I call forensic brewing. This is CSI Greenwich."

Forget women. Forget people under the age of 30. A new era has dawned in the quest to take beer from the provision of those with bald patches, bellies and under-arm tide marks, to respected and revered tipple known for its complexity and character. It's time to target the snobs. The weapon of choice? Aged or vintage beers. And by that I mean beers that are intended to be stored.

In early December two top London brewers, Fuller's and Meantime, launched two new and rather ambitious beer ranges. Both look back to old and in some cases long dead beer styles.

With ABVs reaching as high as 13.4 per cent, these are challenging bottle-conditioned beers to be supped slowly and accessorised with a leather winged-back chair, open fire, smoking jacket and white fluffy cat.

So it was with slapstick timing the beers launched in the same week the government announced plans to tax high-strength beers over 7.5 per cent ABV to curb binge-drinking.

Statement of intent

The brewers want drinkers to try the limited edition beers for their complexity now, and then store and try them in a few years time. Intended as collector's items, make no mistake, these beers are a statement of intent from the brewers that produce them. The aim is to showcase what beer can be. In short, it's time that beer went high-brow.

But are drinkers ready to see beer in this way?

Is resurrecting old recipes the right thing to do to move the image of beer forward? And importantly, with both brewers having the on-trade in their sights, will the general public get it?

Fuller's already has a long established range of vintage beers, going back to 1997, and launched the Brewer's Reserve range in 2008 with a beer aged for 500 days in whisky casks.

The new Past Masters range resurrects old beer styles which were intended to age. Historically brewers could only make beer from October to March so beer had to be stored for use over the summer or greater lengths of time.

The first beer to be released as part of the series is the 7.5 per cent ABV beer XX Strong Ale which follows a recipe dating back to September 2, 1891. Only 150 barrels have been brewed. A new beer, available in a 500ml bottle, will be added to the series every six months.

It's a taste that's not for everybody. It uses a long-forgotten malt variety Plumage Archer, and Goldings and Fuggles hops and is described as having warming overtones and a rich and spicy flavour. It packs a punch.

"This is totally different from other Fuller's beers," says Fuller's head brewer John Keeling who is clearly excited about taking the brewer in such an experimental direction.

"We are doing it to explore the effects of age," he says. "I want to taste it at 15 or 20 years old. It should last that long. But this is a work in progress. I don't want us at Fuller's to be frightened of revealing that to people. We want to be a brewery that evolves."

Detective work

Creating such beers involves detective work. Having tried a beer from 2005 that was awfully sour, it can certainly be trial and error.

Peter Haydon, our would-be beer detective from Meantime Brewery in Greenwich, South-East London, is himself poring through beer archives for inspiration. Why? Because Meantime has just launched its College Beer Club.

For an annual fee of £350, members will be the proud recipient of a different brew every month which uses both recreations of historic recipes and new and innovative collaborations. The first beer is a 13.4 per cent ABV Imperial Russian Stout aged in whisky casks. "We tasted it from the wood and it was like liquid Christmas pudding," says Haydon.

There's one planned with posh permfumier Penhaligon's. "If we teach them about hops, they are going to teach us about making a perfume. So we're going to combine the two," he says. It's a voyage of rediscovery as well as taste.

"How people used to brew is a bit of a mystery to us. We have some of the old recipes but the guys were writing for their own consistency rather than prosperity. There's a bit of detective work to find out what was going on."

Meantime will not announce what beers are next to club members as the chances of the experimental beers going wrong are high. It already has a beer which uses high levels of yeast and smells like "wet dog", which Haydon says it will release when people have got used to the club.

So why bother? Though membership to the club will be capped at 500 people and aimed at those who use big words with lots of syllables as they talk about, sniff at, and coo over their food and drink, Haydon sees a place for the club in mainstream pubs. He wants beer appreciation to catch on.

"Pubs could join, start a tasting group and spread the cost," he says. "The message is that beer is actually a very complicated and sophisticated drink.

"It's a harder drink to make than wine and whisky. Wine makers grow grapes, jump up and down on them and let them ferment. Whisky gets all of its flavour from wood. Where is the skill in that?"

Always a gamble

But what about taste? Just because vintage beers are rare and old, this doesn't make them good. Aged beers peak and trough in taste as they age and opening one is always a gamble.

It's an interesting paradox that brewers are trying to break down the snobbery around beer, by targeting drinks snobs. Beer expert Rupert Ponsonby says: "There are two things holding back the whole beer category. One is ignorance of the range of beers available in Britain and how well they go with food. The other thing is snobbery."

But this is changing. Ponsonby is working with Michelin-starred restaurant Quilon in London to create a vintage beer list to accompany food. He says the time for aged beer and beer appreciation is now as the complex taste of aged beer will show people how refined beer can be. As beers age, their flavours change as hop and malt characters diminish. Light-coloured beers can take on a honey-sweetness. Dark beer can become sherry-like.

"The flavour is multi-faceted. There's layers that can be hard to do, even with an old port. Beer has got to stop being just about the home or the pub and be about food pubs and restaurants too," says Ponsonby. "There is a real opportunity for pubs to have a special offering of beers they have put aside and aged. There's a chance the beers may not be at their best. But you take the same gamble with food or wine. It's just one of those experiences."

A brewer that has proven there is a mainstream audience for such complex beers is Innis & Gunn. Its beer ages in oak barrels rather than bottles, where it picks up vanilla, toffee and orange flavours from the wood. It launched eight years ago. Due to customer demand, it is launching Original on draught for the first time in January.

"We pioneered aged beers. And people told us at the time that we were wrong, it would never work," says managing director Dougal Sharp. "Now consumers keep asking for us on tap. The level of consumer education now blows me away."

Indeed, when I met Meantime's Haydon in the brewers bar at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich it is filled with twentysomethings happily drinking crafted beer, with not a mainstream brand in sight.

"I've never been more convinced that we are on the cusp of a beer revolution in the UK," says Sharp. "You just need to look to the US 20 years ago to see the parallels.

"We'll do it differently, because we are different, but there is undoubtedly a wave of consumer enthusiasm for craft beers that didn't just exist just five years ago. Let's see where we can take it."

What happens to beer when you age it?

Most beers are intended to be drunk fresh. However there are some that will get better over time. So if you're Interested in keeping bottle conditioned beers there's a