Brewing up a storm behind a pint

Pints and politics have an uneasy relationship with one another nowadays.

Once upon a time, the link was straightforward. The brewers (known, thanks to their self-importance and wealth, as the beerage) were viscerally Tory, while those drinking the pints, the working men, were no less unthinkingly Labour voters.

The profits from all the pints sold in working men's clubs and at Labour Party conferences helped fund Conservative election campaigns; successful brewers were given knight-hoods by their shooting chums and died, peaceful, corpulent and myopic, surrounded by their mansion walls and country acres.

No longer. Globalisation (which in beer terms began 40 years ago with the arrival of foreign lagers in our native ale culture) has torn the heart out of British brewing. Most of the local brewers in existence at the end of the Second World War have disappeared. Britain's large brewers like Bass and Whitbread have proved themselves corporate moles, putting short-term profit ahead of the long-term defence of our unique beer culture, and finally losing interest altogether and tunnelling off to run hotels and restaurants which provide easier profits.

The remaining regional brewers have been prepared to defend those traditions (since they quickly realised their very survival depended on such a defence), yet have done so with an almost complete lack of imagination, and with no international perspectives whatsoever. They consistently refuse, too, to work with one another for the common good. Successive governments of both hues have meddled aimlessly, often to defend the indefensible (like the right of brewers and publicans to serve short measures).

They've also maintained their own right to levy the disproportionately high excise duties which help large brewers and bootleggers, and hamper small brewers and those unable to cross the Channel for their beer supplies. Hence the current mess.

Into which, with gazelle-like timidity, Michael Portillo dipped a toe in a conference speech given on 16 November last year. "So I make you this promise," the shadow chancellor declaimed. "The next Conservative government will consult on the introduction of a new reduced rate of duty for lower alcohol beers and lagers." He was offering, it emerged, to think about just possibly reducing the duty on beers between 1.2 per cent alcohol by volume (abv) and 2.4 per cent abv "to the European target rate of around 8p per pint". It made everyone laugh, first of all since there aren't any beers that weak at present, and secondly it's not much of an improvement anyway.

The UK standard rate of duty at present for such beers would be £28.54 per hectolitre. The Portillo proposal would cut that rate to £14.27 per hectolitre, though that is still seven times higher than the French rate of £1.92 per hectolitre. All one can say is that it is better than the Labour Party can manage, since they are proposing no excise cuts for beer at all.

This feeble, though welcome, gesture has, however, in a circuitous and roundabout way, led to the creation of one of the most exciting new pints I can recall tasting for many years. Among those smiling back in November were Jim Burrows and Pete Scholey, respectively MD and head brewer of Brakspear's Brewery in Henley-on-Thames, though their smiles were wryer than most. "Pete and I had been talking about this over many pints already," said Jim Burrows. "Brewing beers which have a lot of flavour but not much alcohol is the litmus test of the great brewer.

"If you're a giant beer factory and your brewers are chemical engineers and not chefs then you'll have a problem; you can't do it. We can."

Indeed they can. Brakspear's Bitter, at just 3.4 per cent abv, is one of the greatest beers in the country, easily holding its weight against rivals at 4 per cent or 4.2 per cent. It's crisp, clean, complex and satisfying, packed with fine, resinous aroma hops and with a succulence which comes from the use of the rare Tate & Lyle number 2 brewing sugar (which is twice as expensive as malt). The brewery's own unique double-fermenting system and nine-strain yeast helps add complexity, too. A glorious pint, in sum, and a standard bearer with which the south of England can do battle against the titans of Yorkshire like Taylor's Landlord, Black Sheep Bitter or Rooster's Yankee.

Brakspear's, in other words, might just about be able to produce a great 2.4 per cent pint; few other brewers could. There is also every reason to do so, since ales (in order to compete with weakly flavoured but alcoholic lagers) have become too strong over the past few years at a time when we have every reason to be drinking less rather than more alcohol.