All ale chairman Young

There are many uncertainties in the British beer scene, but one fact is beyond all doubt: no British brewery has a chairman like John Young. Last Friday lunchtime, I watched him stand in the Brewery Tap on Wandsworth High Street, charming the world. He wore a summer blazer; his tummy protruded from the junction where an ill-buttoned shirt met a badly engineered trouser fastening. He'd just found a bride to kiss, and greeted almost everyone in the pub individually and a high percentage of those physically. "D'you want to tuck me in?" he asked two female workers who'd commented on the bulging white flesh. They declined, with a giggle. "I'm very naughty," he confessed, superfluously. "D'you know I'll be 79 next week?" Marketing manager Stephen Goodyear eyed the chairman nervously. "Still in every day. You won't get rid of me that easily, you," he said, stabbing an energetic finger at Goodyear. "My grandmother lived to 111. Put that in, will you? Can I tell my story yet?"

"No, not yet, chairman," replied Goodyear. He was struggling valiantly to keep the encounter on-message. I'd decided to see Young's to find out about its new beer, AAA (slogan: "Not Your Usual"), and Goodyear was trying to take me through a kind of laptop presentation flipchart thingie which outlined all the USPs of this "class pint for the new generation. It's quite simple, really. The problem is that ..."

"I don't have an office, you know," interrupted the chairman. "I try to spend as much time as I can in the pubs." (So true, so true.) "That's my family," he continued, swinging his arm wildly in the direction of the assembled drinkers. "My family are the brewery staff, 317 of them. We've got 100 families all related to each other, and their future depends on the prosperity of Young's. My father was a socialist, you know. We had the country's first profit-sharing scheme. Came into existence in the Fifties. We've got a man retiring next week and the value of his shares is £77,000. Can I tell my story yet?"

"Not just yet, chairman," interrupted the tenacious Goodyear - though, as it happened, the Chairman's remarks were germane. If Young's (and breweries like it) are to continue to prosper, they have to find ways of appealing to the new generation of drinkers which has grown up on nitrokeg ales and lager. Enter Young's AAA. It's served cool, in a branded, straight-sided glass; it has a creamy head (thanks to being pulled through a swan neck and sparkler) which lasts the pint through; and it's not very hoppy - "so as not to frighten the kids", as Goodyear puts it. The chairman was solidly behind it: he was wearing the baseball cap. "It's jolly good," he said, taking a huge slurp.

"We've got a chap in our Clock House pub in Peckham, used to drink six pints of Ordinary a day. Now it's six of AAA. He won't go back. Can I tell my story yet?"

Goodyear smiled indulgently; the chairman wasn't to be leashed.

"Listen," he said, his face about three inches from mine, his eyes bright and beady, his breath almost as heady as the beer itself. "I'm very worried about the future of cask ale. There's a whole raft of people who don't even know what it is. I was in the Old Sargeant in Garratt Lane the other day - do you know we've still got 40 pubs with public bars? - I always begin in the public bar, and there were four young 25-year-olds there. Builders, they were, working locally, over from East London somewhere. "This is the chairman," all the regulars said. "He'll buy you a drink." So I asked them what they'd like. "Stella. They all wanted Stella. I told them to try our Young's lager. One of them was leaning against the bar and he said, 'D'you know what I've never had in my life, and that's that cask ale stuff'. I bought him a pint of Ordinary, and he loved it, loved it. Everyone said it was just because it was free, but he was back there again with his own money the next day. Same again. People just need to try. They just need to stop drinking advertising, and start drinking beer. Do you know our cooper's retiring today? Forty years, he's done. Tom Woods. Retiring today."

Get The Taste Young's AAA is, despite its appearance, a pure, natural and unsullied cask ale. It's an all-malt brew (Maris Otter, can't get more classic than that) which uses whole-leaf American Liberty hops (agreed: unconventional), and Young's own yeast strain. At four per cent, it's a sensible drinking strength, not silly juice. I like the coolness, and am prepared to put up with the head; the glass looks great. In flavour, the beer is soft, without much aroma (low hop levels and the head stops that), with tangy malt and gentle fruit from those Liberty hops. Good beer, though not as good as Ordinary (the 3.7 per cent hop-charged Bitter) or Special (a grand 4.6 per cent mouth-smacker) - but then I'm just an old fart who loves real ale anyway. People like me will be heading off to Olympia tonight for the opening of the Great British Beer Festival, which runs until Saturday (ring 0207 598 6515 for details of opening times and admission prices). Young's AAA will be there, too, braving the wrath of the initiated.