Last year’s release of Prize Old Ale was a real highlight for many fans of excellent beer. John Keeling counts himself as one such fan, but his role in the story of this beer goes back somewhat further, too.

A lot of good words have been written about this remarkable beer. I have also been interviewed many times through the years about it and my part in its story. So now is the time for me to tell that story in my own words.

Firstly, so much new interest has been generated by the latest version of Prize Old Ale brewed at Dark Star by head brewer Henry Kirk. Henry has made a version of great character and personality –  much like himself. Unfortunately, Dark Star is closing its site and being moved to Meantime.

While I know that there were problems with the lease being up for renewal and the brewing plant was not the best, I hope that Dark Star and Henry both go on to greater things.

I first got involved in the story of Prize Old Ale when I was part of the Fuller’s team which took over Gales Brewery, way back in 2005. This was not an aggressive takeover and in fact we were not the first brewer to show interest in Gales. We were however their preferred buyer, and the deal was done. Believe me, Gales wanted to sell.

I then travelled to the brewery to have a look around and meet the brewers. It was obvious on an initial inspection that the brewery plant needed some major investment. The plant had not been invested in for several years and the largest project the head brewer Derek Lowe had done in his 25 years as a Gales brewer was £26,000. When I tasted their beers, it was obvious too that they suffered from inconsistency brought about by the worn-out equipment. 

The brewers were all excellent and I had known them for some time, Derek was due to retire, and had already worked a year over his retirement year, but he readily agreed to stay on for six months to help with the handover. Moira Williams, another excellent brewer, had just left Gales and was on her way to Australia.

I also knew Malcolm Irvine from Heriot Watt and wanted him as a brewer at Fuller’s, but he had already decided to start in his own brewery which is still producing excellent beers to this day.

One brewer that I did meet for the first time was a junior brewer/lab technician Anthony Smith who was so impressive that I did offer him a job and he is still at Fuller’s brewing beer and has had a very successful career.

The beers too could be very impressive when on form and Festival Mild became a firm favourite with me. HSB and Seafarers were also both great beers. However, they all suffered from a lack of consistency despite the hard work and excellence of the brewers.

The beer I had most trouble with was Prize Old Ale. I had a couple of bottles of it before and had not particularly liked it. But then I took a couple of bottles home with me and drank them one evening. I had a change of mind; the beers were exceptional, and I immediately made up my mind to take it to Fuller’s.

“Sometimes they’d insist the beer go down the drain, I merely pretended to be deaf.”

John Keeling

Gales produced one brew of this beer every year and fermented it in old wooden fermenting vessels that were impossible to clean and therefore had a background of flora and fauna impossible to replicate. This gave POA its unique flavour. With the brewery due to close, the cost of updating it to match the standards at Fuller’s was just too much, so I had to ask myself how I could bring POA to Fuller’s without the wooden fermenters.

I asked Derek to produce two brews of POA. One for them to bottle and one to tanker over to Fuller’s. My intention was to use the eighty barrels sent to Fullers with its unique infection to somehow keep the beer alive. The idea was to brew another eighty barrels at Fuller’s and blend them together, bottling half and keeping half for the next year. An additional challenge was to keep the infection out of any other beer!

The first bottling was in 2007 and I was really pleased with the flavour. By then, we had plenty of experience in bottle conditioned beers. We filtered first then re-added fresh yeast, and bottled it using a crown cork not the corks that Gales had used.

If condition built up in the bottle this sometimes pushed the cork out of the bottle. We repeated the process in 2008 and I looked forward to this being a yearly event. Unfortunately, our sales team thought otherwise and that was the end for POA at Fuller’s.

We did however keep the beer in tank and despite many people advising me to dump the beer down the drain and sometimes even insisting it go down the drain, I merely pretended to be deaf. That might have been the end, but James Kemp then head brewer of Marble, approached us to use the POA in some beers he wanted to make.

Now, James had worked at Fuller’s and knew all about POA, so off I went to Manchester to brew a collaboration with Marble. I took a young brewer with me, Henry Kirk, to do all the hard work with James while I drank tea and advised. We blended some of the Fuller’s POA into this brew.

We made four different versions of this beer by aging them in Pinot Noir, Madeira, Bourbon and Barbera barrels. I enjoyed each one and I was pleased that both James and Henry had developed a love for this beer. That was to be my last active involvement as I retired shortly after. But for Henry this was merely the beginning but that is his story not mine. Long may the story of this great beer continue.