Aim high, shoot low

By Phil Mellows

A couple of decades ago, most lunchtimes you’d have found me under a flyover in Croydon that funnels the traffic towards east Cheam, in a secluded suburban nook called the Royal Standard. And I’d be holding a pint of cask Chiswick Bitter.

Brewed by Fuller’s, it was the ideal beer to break the middle of a day at the office. Crucially, it was only 3.5% abv, yet bursting with a hoppy bitterness that danced refreshingly on the tongue.

This miracle was achieved, I believe, thanks to the parti-gyle brewing technique, in which a brew is split between a weaker beer and a strong ale, in this case the much-admired Fuller’s ESB. Chiswick bore the impressive character of its big sibling, but lightly.

Then they stopped making it. It appeared as a seasonal briefly, then disappeared completely. Despite my protests. Apparently, I was the only one still drinking it.

But why am I going on about a beer you can’t get any more? It was the recent Budget that called Chiswick to mind, with the confirmation that, from August, the upper threshold of the lower band of alcohol duty will be raised from 2.8% to 3.4%.

It means we’ll be seeing more beers in that lower abv bracket. In fact, they’re already coming.

A lot of drinkers are wary of lower-strength beers, worried that they won’t give them enough flavour. Indeed, Chiswick was a rare example of one that did at that time. But while it’s still quite tricky to produce a decent beer below 3%, to my mind, a 3.4% brew has more promise.

Among the newcomers, Maverick, the latest member of Shepherd Neame’s Cask Club, has attracted most attention, a citrussy golden ale dry-hopped with three new(ish) British hops with New World characteristics – Jester, Olicana and Ernest. I haven’t tried it yet, but the recipe suggests some effort has gone into making sure the flavours and aromas punch above its alcoholic weight.

Another traditional brewer taking the opportunity is Stockport’s Robinsons, which has introduced Citra Pale to its core cask range.

Especially catching the eye is Burning Sky’s Jasmine Grisette. The Sussex brewer already makes one of my favourite lower-strength beers, the 3.5% Plateau, very different from Chiswick but it delivers the same refreshment.

A grisette is a fantastic, rarely seen, French farmhouse ale, similar to a saison or a gose, but lighter and fresher. Burning Sky is good at this kind of thing and its new grisette, in keg and can, is infused with jasmine flowers and promises to be as wonderful as Simon Gane’s label artwork (pictured).

Described as a “session New England IPA”, Astral Voyage is joining the core range at Turning Point Brew Co in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. There’s even a party to launch it, if you’re up that way.

It’s no coincidence that each of these beers is labelled 3.4% abv, just inside the new duty band. If they were 0.1% stronger they would attract twice the tax. It makes you wonder whether, if the Treasury had got this right the first time, Chiswick would still be around today.