British mild's on the comeback trail

The expression "what goes around comes around" is especially true where beer is concerned. Just when you think a particular style is dead it has the habit of leaping out of the grave and striking you smartly in the taste buds.

It has happened to British beer styles from the opposite end of the colour spectrum: India Pale Ale and Porter. Many brewers now produce both types of beer and they are not confined to the micro-brewing sector. Marston's, which would not be best pleased if you called it a micro, has had considerable success with its superb Old Empire IPA.

I wrote last week about a style of beer called Export brewed in the German city of Dortmund. Export is a golden, easy-drinking lager but I said it had a lot in common with English Milds as both were originally fashioned to refresh industrial workers, such as the coal miners and steel workers of the German Ruhr and their opposite numbers in Britain.

Export now plays second fiddle to Pils in the Dortmund area, but it is still in demand even though heavy industry has disappeared. Now, in post-industrial Britain, Dark Mild is making a small return to favour.

John Keeling, the energetic and passionate head brewer at Fuller's in London, is planning to revive the Chiswick brewery's dark mild known as Hock. He plans to launch it in April, which is just the right time of year as Hock is an old English term for the period between spring and summer. Centuries ago, there were annual festivals known as Hock Tides celebrated on the second Monday and Tuesday after Easter.

John has been asking people who recall drinking Hock, when it was a regular Fuller's brand in the 1970s, for their memories of the beer. Distance can be a dangerously distorting mirror, but my memory of Hock is of a wonderfully refreshing beer, with a sweetness balanced by roasted malt character, a hint of liquorice and a gentle but persistent hop bitterness.

Hock will be a seasonal beer for Fuller's, but other brewers have Dark Milds as permanent members of their portfolios. The Dark Mild sector was given a major boost in 2000 when Moorhouse's of Burnley won the Campaign for Real Ale's Champion Beer of Britain award for Black Cat.

In south Wales, Brain's Dark remains a Welsh legend. In Liverpool, Cains brews a splendidly full-bodied and hoppy version of the style, while Banks's in Wolverhampton has the biggest-selling mild in the country, a brand that outsells its bitter. Joseph Holt in Manchester brews a stunning Mild Ale bursting with rich aromas and flavours, and well-hopped for the style. Some years ago, at a Camra festival, confronted by a wide and tempting range of beers, I stuck with Holt's Mild, marvelling at its richness, complexity and sheer drinkability. It was also a pound a pint, which prompted my decision.

Arkells of Swindon, which has grown from micro to regional status, brews a Dark Mild. Bateman's in Lincolnshire, which has won several Camra awards for its Dark Mild, supplies the beer to other breweries' estates. In an age where we are told people will drink only premium products, Bateman's has scored success with a 3% abv beer.

Mild will never again become a major style. Until the 1950s, it outsold Bitter but went into steep decline as drinkers turned not only to paler beers but from red wine to white. Bitter and then lager became "aspirational beers", consumed by people in white-collar and management jobs who didn't want to be associated with the cloth-cap image of Mild, drunk by old men who kept whippets and racing pigeons. I am more of a snap-brimmed fedora man than a cloth cap one, but I love Dark Mild and seek it out on my travels. One of the many pleasures of a visit to Liverpool is to drop into the welcoming Cain's Brewery Tap for a pint or three of the tangy, bitter-sweet brew.

Thanks to our growing number of craft breweries, another great British beer style has been saved from extinction. I look forward with keen anticipation to Master Keeling's Hock when the first cuckoo has heralded the spring.