Weltons Pridenjoy

Top Tastings 2009

ABV: 2.8%
Origin: Horsham, West Sussex, England
Website: www.weltonsbeer.com

Weltons Pridenjoy

Overall this Top Tastings selection exhibits a bias towards very strong beers demanding contemplative sipping, but I also have an affection for low gravity beers, which in many ways are a more demanding test of the brewer’s art. Ray Welton, creator of this 2.8% beer, says it’s the hardest of all his range to brew as there’s “less to work with”.

As a rugby player Roy longed for a cask ale weak enough to drink immediately after a match and developed Pridenjoy to fill that gap in 1997. It’s proved consistently popular and was given wider exposure a few years back when Roger Protz chose to feature it in his book 300 Beers to Try before you Die, alongside an all-star cast of familiar world classics. I sampled it on cask at the Great British Beer Festival in 2009. It’s also available bottle conditioned though for a beer at this strength I’d recommend you make sure your bottles are fresh.

Established styles of low gravity beer tend to use malt and sweetness to add character and body — think of mild, sweet stout or Dutch oud bruin — but Ray has adopted a different approach, brewing a pale and quite hoppy beer. The grist is mainly Optic pale malt with chocolate, amber, Munich, crystal and wheat malts, and Northdown and Bramling Cross hop varieties.

The result is a coppery gold colour (mine was slightly hazy) with a fine bubbly white head. There’s a casky, lightly malty and hoppy aroma with a sweet note. The palate has a light malt base with citrus and pineapple hop flavours, blackcurranty around the edges, with a cleansing swallow leading to a notably peppery bitter finish. It has to be said the body is slightly thin, perhaps a little too thin to support the big hop bouquet in adequate balance, but set against the achievement of getting so much flavour and complexity into so low a gravity, that’s a minor and perhaps inevitable flaw. Not a world-beater, agreed, but a welcome and worthwhile stitch in the tapestry.

Pridenjoy will be off to a head start if the current CAMRA campaign for the so-called “People’s Pint”, demanding the abolition of duty on beers of 2.8% or less, is successful. Such a move would inevitably prompt far more brewers to stretch their skills on low gravity beers and the results would be fascinating to taste.

Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/weltons-pridenjoy/26774/