Less is more? It certainly can be with beer strength... in more than one way

Stand & Deliver, a delicious beer of 3.2%, features strongly in this article.

A great deal has been written and debated of late about large brewing companies reducing the strength of their core beers so that they will pay less tax on them.

The latest example is Molson Coors reducing the strength of Carling to 3.4% from 4.0%. It will save the conglomerate millions in tax and is likely to make little difference to the already falling sales of the product – it’s beer for people who don’t really like beer anyway. And on that note, Fosters, Carlsberg, Grolsch, John Smith’s, Coors and Amstel have also reduced strengths recently.

It is nothing other than a cynical move to save a great deal of money. The duty on a 4.0% beer amounts to about 41p a pint; on a 3.4% beer, about 19p. And as we know, or should, the big brewers are essentially run by accountants who, in their perfect world, would sell us only two products: “beer” and “lager”. Thankfully, we are still a long way from their perfect world and consumer pressure should ensure we always are.

But – a change of tack here – this isn’t an article merely about slagging off cynical big brewers.

I often wonder about drinkers’ attitudes to the strength of their beer. Is strength a macho thing, among men, and whatever the equivalent word is among women who drink beer? If so, it really shouldn’t be.

I don’t drink any beer specifically for its strength and I don’t know a discerning drinker who does.

I do know a guy who used to insist that anything below 5% wasn’t worth drinking and, quite simply, that’s someone who doesn’t really get beer.

While the idea for this ramble has been floating around my head for a while, two beers I’ve had in the last week really prompted me into action.

I popped into Tollgate Brewery’s Milking Parlour, on the Calke estate near Ticknall, and ordered a pint called Stand & Deliver.

It’s a beer name that sits well with the company logo, which depicts a caped horse rider, likely a highwayman, who would have passed by the tollgate at Woodville, where the brewery was originally founded.

It’s a “modern English bitter with mystic hops”, according to the brewers. What I got was a very good classic bitter, loaded with malty flavour. And yet… it comes in at a mere 3.2%.

I swear – you could drink plenty of beers of twice that strength with less flavour. It gives the lie to the idea that a beer of that strength will be insipid, thin and lacking in flavour. It was very good.

Relaxing with a Stand & Deliver at the Milking Parlour - and yes, that is one of my old articles on the wall.

I will go further than very good in moving on to talking about the best beer I have had so far this year. OK, let’s make that the best beer I didn’t already know about.

One of my go-to places in Burton – there are a good few – is The Arches, the Outwoods Brewing Company tap in Station Street, up and running for two years now under the dedicated ownership of Colin Trowell.*

On Colin’s bar was a beer called Byron Bay’s Finest, billed as an Aussie pale. It is sensational. (Geographical note: Byron Bay is a coastal town in New South Wales, a little south of Gold Coast, Queensland, where the Commonwealth Games were held in 2018).

No need to get into too much about what constitutes an Australian pale; it’s both malty and hoppy with tropical fruit notes.

Getting the balance right is the trick and with Byron Bay’s Finest, Colin has done it. He says it’s one of his own favourites.

I don't say these things lightly... Bryon Bay's Finest was the nicest "new to me" beer I've had this year.

Here’s the rub: it’s 3.9%, therefore an easy-drinking session beer. You’d often see beers in this style at the high end of the 4% range and above 5%, but often without the balance of flavour this one has. Less is more is a lesson many brewers could take on board.

I can’t tell you you’ll find Byron Bay’s Finest anywhere else or that it will still be on if you race down to The Arches as soon as you read this.

Colin has it all on brewing to meet the demand for his own outlet. I can tell you that if it isn’t on, you won’t be disappointed with what is. A lot of the beers served other than his own come from Thornbridge or Dancing Duck.

I could – at some point I will – write an awful lot more about what Colin Trowell is doing and brewing in Burton. Many’s the time friends and I have said “how does he produce so much beer from such a small set up and it’s all excellent?” Pop along and wonder too!

My main point overall is to highlight that lower strength beers are not automatically poor or “weak” beers, not in the hands of brewers who care.

Do, by all means, reject the rubbish the big brewers are cynically sending out at lower strengths – they were poor beers at their higher strengths anyway.

Seek out the good stuff! And judge it by what you actually taste, not by the numbers on the pump clip.

• For further reading, a good article on why big brewers are making weaker beers in the Guardian: www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jul/29/drinkflation-why-british-booze-is-getting-weaker#:~:text=Even%20more%20specifically%2C%20Carling%20Original,(ABV)%20to%203.4%25.