Draught Bass, Marston's

Draught Bass 4.4%

Draught Bass is the beer that came back from the dead. It was once Britain’s best-selling premium cask beer, accounting for 800,000 barrels a year.

But Bass left brewing in 2000 to run hotels – it’s now Holiday Inns – and the beer went through several hoops before ending up in the arms of AB InBev, the world’s biggest brewer.

Its main brands include American Budweiser and Stella Artois. It has little interest in cask beer and sales of Draught Bass declined to 30,000 barrels a year. The beer was hard to find outside its heartland of Burton-on-Trent and the Derby area.

But passionate drinkers of the beer were determined to promote it. Every April they staged a “Drink Bass Day”, encouraging other pubgoers to seek it out and to encourage publicans to stock the beer.

AB InBev, now known as Budweiser UK in Britain, has belatedly taken notice. It has seen the success of such premium ales as Taylor Landlord, Adnams Ghost Ship, Thornbridge Jaipur IPA and St Austell Proper Job.

As a result, it has launched a national promotion for Draught Bass. This includes striking new badges for hand pumps and glasses bearing the famous Red Triangle trademark. The Red Triangle was registered in 1876 and was the country’s first trademark.

The beer is now brewed for Budweiser UK by Marston’s in Burton. This means it’s brewed using the mineral-rich Burton waters that gives beers brewed there a characteristic sulphur aroma.

Marston’s cannot confirm the precise recipe for the beer as the brewery doesn’t own it and Budweiser doesn’t reveal it.

When the beer was owned and brewed by Bass, it was brewed with 100 per cent Halcyon pale malt with maltose syrup added in the copper during the boil with hops. The hops were Challenger and Northdown, which created 24 Units of Bitterness.

The beer has a fine balance of biscuit malt and floral hops on aroma and palate, with a long, bittersweet and refreshing finish.

One thing missing from the beer is the group of Burton Union fermenters used by Bass. This system, developed in the 19^th century to cleanse fermenting beer of yeast, played a critical role in the taste and character of the beer.

Marston’s still brewed with Union fermenters but when it became part of the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company, Carlsberg closed the Unions on the grounds of cost. It did donate one Union to Thornbridge in Derbyshire that uses it for some batches of Jaipur.

Draught Bass is currently available in selected branches of Ember Inns, part of the Mitchells & Butlers group. Seek it out.