Building a Better Beer Business Part 5: Golden Oldies
It’s not just wine that can ‘do’ ageing. Ben McFarland looks at how the revival of vintage beers can bring something new to your drinks offering
For some reason, there’s a palpable obsession with the past currently permeating through the British bar business: from speakeasies and gin joints to stripped-back basic boozers and punch houses, there’s a definite yearning for yesteryear.
Beer is by no means immune to this obsession with the old-fashioned either. Initially inspired by the efforts of the American craft-brewing scene, where until recently age-old European styles received far greater reverence than in their homeland, British brewers – both Old and New World – are now dusting down brewing tomes and reviving styles that would have been drunk by the masses, long before mainstream lagers came along.
Authentic replicas of 18th-century India Pale Ales, porters and stouts continue to be cult currency in modern craft-brewing circles. South London’s quite marvellous Kernel Brewery recently won the International Beer Challenge with its Export Stout (London 1890), perhaps suggesting that we’re ready for more bigger-tasting beers.
BETTER WITH AGE
An increasing number of brewers are experimenting with ageing beer, exploring its relationship with wood, borrowing barrels from distillers and winemakers, re-invigorating maturation techniques of
the past, and developing drops that improve over time.
The results, more often than not, are remarkable. Unique and absurdly affordable liquid luxuries and legacies of the past that can be laid down, much like a fine wine, and enjoyed in the future – be they imperial stouts, punchy porters, Belgian strong ales or sours, barley wines, old ales, or even strong wheat beers.
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Old Ale & Barley Wine
No true exploration of our ale-drinking past is complete without the inclusion of old ales and barley wines, porters and stouts – many of which are vintage ales. United, as they are, in being beers that are matured for a considerable period, they are too often grouped together in terms of style.
This is daft, as they are distinct and different ‘styles’ deserving of individual investigation. An acquired taste – well worth acquiring – each is capable of adding depth and an extra
dimension Drinking wine was seen as unpatriotic... Old ale, much like barley wine, is an unwaveringly English beer style. Dating back to before the Industrial Revolution, old ales were stored for long periods in unlined wooden tuns from where the beer developed a slightly musty manner and the colloquial name of ‘stale’. Barrel-dwelling wild yeast gifted the beer with a tart, lactic sourness which proved extremely popular at the time. Old ales were also used as the slightly sour spike when blended with porter, as well as being mixed with younger ales to give them a bit of character and complexity. However, most brewers had ceased laying beer down in barrels for long periods by the turn of the 19th century and, consequently, ‘stale’ and ‘old’ ales disappeared – only to be revived more than a century and a half later as part of a wider campaign led by CAMRA.
Given the time and talent required to cultivate one of the most complex forms of the brewer’s art, old ales remain rare. By no means exclusively, dark, old ales are middleweight rather than heavyweight in terms of alcohol content (4-6.5% abv) and tend to be aged for at least a year. But what of barley wine? In the 18th century, England was forever getting into fisticuffs with France and, consequently, drinking wine – the enemy’s elixir – was regarded as most unpatriotic. So, strong grandiose ales called barley wines were devised and served in goblets. Ranging from amber to deep copper-garnet in colour, they’re full-bodied and designed to develop over time. In America, barley wines have been championed and given a contemporary twist. |
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Furnished with in-yer-face flavours and commanding a premium price-point, these beers are definitely not designed as everyday drinks for everyone. So where, as a business, can you big them up?
Earlier this year, the Michelin-starred restaurant Quilon introduced the UK’s first vintage beer list. It offers eight different vintages of Fuller’s Vintage Ale from London, all at 8.5% abv, plus the 2008 vintage of Gales Prize Old Ale. All are served in large brandy balloon glasses and priced at £12-£14 a bottle.
Chef Sriram Aylur, who was recently named Beer Drinker of the Year by the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, says: ‘We are already selling an average of seven bottles a day and I really hope that other British brewers will see the gastronomic potential of laying down vintage beers. They are being sipped not just as digestifs, but as aperitifs as well. Many female customers are sharing a bottle in preference to stronger brandies and ports.’
The Americans have long been compiling vintage beer lists. Some years ago in New York, the Gramercy Tavern unveiled a vintage beer list made up of ever-improving ales sourced from all over the world. Bottles include Unibroue Edition 2004 from Québec ($29/£18.60), 2000 Anchor Christmas Ale from California ($13/£8.33) and 2003 Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout from New York ($14/£8.97).
‘I hope british brewers will see the potential of laying down vintage beers’ sriram aylur
The Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco followed suit, laying down bottles in a temperature-controlled cellar in 2007. These included Samichlaus Doppelbock from Austria ($25/£16) and Cantillon Classic Gueuze from Brussels ($50/£32).
Vintage beers run a whole gamut of styles. Essentially, they are any beers that can be cellared, laid down and left to improve over time, with a character that becomes more complex over time. The
epitome of the brewer’s art, they share more in common with
a port or a fine cognac than with a bottle of Peroni.
As vintage ales have not been stabilised by pasteurisation or filtration, they tend to be bottle-conditioned (live yeast is added to the beer in the bottle). Over time, the beer carries on fermenting in the bottle and as the yeast Pac-Mans up the residual sugars, the beer’s body becomes more interesting and the flavours more beguiling. In addition to its sugar-munching, the added yeast can adorn the beer with some fascinating fruit flavours.
‘Most beers are chilled, filtered and pasteurised and, as such, are designed to be refreshing and best drunk between three weeks and three months after they’re brewed,’ explains John Keeling, head brewer at Fuller’s. ‘But vintage beers are not designed to refresh, they’re designed to satisfy and tend to be best drunk after four or five years.’
‘Vintage beers are not designed to refresh, they’re designed to satisfy and tend to be best drunk after four or five years’ John Keeling
Served in snifters, as an after-dinner drink, they’re best listed on a bar’s beer menu under a separate, more discerning, section much like fine or rare wines. And like wines, they need to be carefully stored – ideally in boxes where no light and heat can get at them, and with no temperature fluctuations.
‘The stronger the beer is, the longer it takes to reach maturity,’ points out Keeling. ‘A one-year vintage will be a great beer but it won’t be until you taste a five-year vintage of the same beer that you’ll understand the added complexity.’
HOP TO TROT
Hoppy beers age well, as hops act as a preservative. When drunk young these astringent beers may induce a painful pucker, but the harsh hop character substantially mellows over time. Similarly,
porters and stouts smoothen and make for a more melodious mouthful when left for a few years. ‘Stouts and porters were designed for ageing, and they certainly mellow out,’ says Keeling. ‘With these
kinds of beers, you should really buy a few and then explore them at different stages of ageing.’
Vintage beer may not deliver the same returns as vintage wine, but the initial outlay is a fraction of the cost and risk, and means that vertical tastings and ale exploration is a lot more affordable.
‘It’s a unique experience and adds something completely different – especially as an after-dinner digestif or as an accompaniment to cheese or a dessert,’ Keeling adds.
Five Vintage Ales to Start With
Coopers Vintage Ale
Gales Prize Old Ale
Harviestoun Ola Dubh
JW Lees Harvest Ale
Strong Suffolk |
Editorial feature from Imbibe Magazine – November/December 2011
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