Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Hops?

Are British beer drinkers afraid of challenging flavours, hop bitterness in particular? The question is prompted by the recent news concerning the Meantime Brewery in south-east London, which is concentrating on exporting its beer to the United States.

Head brewer Alastair Hook said American consumers liked "extreme tasting beers." A couple of weeks earlier a beer-writing colleague complained that British brewers seemed afraid to put hops in their beer these days, whereas American craft brewers positively relish packing their beers with the peppery and citrus aromas and flavours of the hop plant. With a touch of irony, one of Meantime's export beers is an India Pale Ale, a style developed in England in the 19th century for the colonial trade. IPA is closely associated with Burton-on-Trent where such brewers as Allsopp, Bass and Worthington opened up a lucrative trade in India with their strong and hoppy pale ales.

But the first beer designed specifically for the India trade was brewed at Hodgon's brewery at Bow Bridge in East London. It is fitting that Meantime, based just across the Thames in Greenwich, has picked up the torch from Hodgson and is brewing a London IPA again.

The Americans are in for a delight. It is a superb beer. There are too many beers masquerading as IPAs - brewed both here and in the US - that are too dark, too weak and lacking in bitterness to be true members of the style.

Meantime has got the packaging right. The IPA is in a 750ml bottle with a Champagne-style cork and cradle. The labels are cunningly designed to look like Victorian ones and the back label even has a touch of the Taj Mahal about it.

Packaging often flatters to deceive. It's the content that matters and the 7.5% fluid inside the elegant bottle lives up to expectations. It is a tempting pale bronze colour. The aroma is inviting, with tart citrus fruit and Fuggles and Goldings hops character overlain by a rich marzipan note.

Hops, fruit and juicy malt fill the mouth while the finish is dry, bitter and hoppy, balanced by biscuity malt, tangy fruit and more of that delectable marzipan. It's a succulent beer to drink on its own or with the spicy dishes associated with India.

Meantime, in common with St Peter's Brewery in Suffolk, is a small craft brewery that is doing well in specialist markets. St Peter's, with its flagon-shaped green bottle, is sold throughout the world. Meantime is just five years old but has built a deserved reputation for a range of beers for Sainsbury's Taste the Difference specialist food and drink sector.

The new Meantime beers - launched to celebrate its fifth anniversary - includes a wheat beer, a London Porter and coffee and chocolate beers (chocolate beer shown left). They should all be available in this country. It is fallacy to say that American beer drinkers are more discerning than their British counterparts. There are just more Americans and most of them drink Budweiser.

The fact that membership of the Campaign for Real Ale now stands at 76,000 - an all-time record - ant its beer festivals, local, regional and national, are packed to the rafters and often run out of ale are signs of the vibrancy of the quality end of the British beer market. Camra's membership is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are millions, not thousands, of beer lovers in this country who go beyond the advertising and the national "blands" to seek out beers bursting with malt and hop character.

My beer-writing friend who complained of the lack of hoppiness in British beer phones to say that he takes it all back. He has just spent a week in the Cotswolds and discovered brilliant beers brewed by small brewers that were odes of joy to the beauty of hops. He singles out for special praise the bitter from the Stanway Brewery near Cheltenham, heavy with uncompromising bitterness.

Scores of new small brewers have opened this year. Their owners realise there is a genuine and growing demand for tasty beers.

So don't write us off, Alastair. Send your IPA to the US if you will, but, as it's an export beer, send some straight back home again.