Strong Suffolk

It's a journey into brewing history: almost hidden from view among modern production vessels at Greene King's Bury St Edmund's brewery are some wooden vessels holding an amazing liquid that forms part of the brewery's bottled Strong Suffolk Ale. The beer is a fascinating and possibly unique example of an 18th century "country beer".

It's a blend of two beers, BPA -- Best Pale Ale -- and Old 5X. BPA is a potent force at 5%, but Old 5X puts it in the shade, registering 12%. Old 5X is stored in three wooden vats for a minimum of two years.

The 12% beer is treasured at Greene King. As well as being blended with BPA to produce Strong Suffolk, it's also the base for St Edmund barley wine and the draught Winter Ale.

Strong Suffolk predates the first porters of the 18th century, though they have much in common. One of the chief ingredients in both styles was an ale known by the less than tempting name of "stale". In those days, just as stout meant strong rather than plump, stale implied age rather than vinegar. The beer was the result of long maturation in wooden vessels and it's what is known as Old Ale today. The first porters were a blend of pale, brown and stale. Country brewers such as Greene King blended their beers from pale and stale: brown ale was a London phenomenon at the time and wasn't brewed by country cousins. Vats maketh the beer The tradition survives in Bury St Edmunds. Both BPA and Old 5X are brewed with pale and crystal malts. BPA is hopped with Challenger and First Gold while Old 5X has those two hop varieties along with the pungent and resinous Target.

The area of the brewery that houses the Old 5X vats were once tunnels that linked Bury's monastery with the local abbot's house: the tunnels were hidey-holes for monks at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. Just as the first lager brewers in Germany used caves dug from rock to store their beers, the early brewers in Bury had discovered a similar use for tunnels beneath the town.

The lids of the vats (right) are covered in marl, a word in Suffolk dialect for the sandy gravel that covers much of the county. It is used to stop the lids of the vessels being lifted by the secondary fermentation. It is also supposed to prevent wild yeasts and bacteria from infecting the beer, though the ale that emerges from two years in wood has a distinctive lactic sourness with a hint of iodine.

It was possible to see where the finished flavour of the beer comes from. One of the three vats used to store Old 5X - each one holds 100 gallons -- sprang a leak and had to be demolished. Head Brewer John Bexon showed me the staves of the old vat. They were covered with a crust of yeast and protein that would have imparted their own rich character to the beer.

John told me that Strong Suffolk is made up of a maximum of 15% Old 5X. The feeling at the brewery is that the beer is so tart that drinkers would reject the extreme sourness, which is modified by the more restrained maltiness of BPA.

Continuing the tradition Strong Suffolk has a spicy, oaky, sherry wine and iron-like intensity on the aroma and palate, with a profoundly sour note. The finish is big and complex, with biscuity malt, vinous fruit and some tannins, balanced by bitter and earthy hop resins and the continuing lactic sourness.

John Bexon (left) is now busily searching for two new vessels to store Old 5X - one to replace the demolished tun, the second to enable him to keep up with demand for the beer.

He has contacted the Scotch whisky industry without success and may now speak to Spanish sherry makers. Famous Belgians John could do worse than ask the Belgian brewery Rodenbach if it has any wooden vessels to spare. The company based in Roeslare is famous for its beer style known as West Flanders Sour Red and there is clearly a link with the English style personified by Strong Suffolk.

Rodenbach stores its Grand Cru beer in unlined wooden vessels. The beer is deliberately allowed to stale as a result of attacks by wild yeasts and other micro-organisms in the wood. In the 1870s, a member of the brewing dynasty, Eugene Rodenbach, toured England to study brewing techniques in this country. It's thought he may have visited Greene King and seen how stale or old ale was matured in wooden vats.

There is no documentary evidence to prove this but the beers do share similar characteristics. On one visit to Rodenbach, I took some bottles of Strong Suffolk for a comparative tasting. Rodenbach's Grand Cru is served straight - it is not a blend - and has a greater sour and lactic intensity than Strong Suffolk, but the two beer's common heritage is clear.