Protz; Hey Rhodri, take a drink on the mild side. Do, do, do, do...

I did a double take in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago when Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, told the annual conference of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) that "Dark is dead". Dark is what the Welsh call mild ale and I was puzzled by Rhodri's claim as I'd been drinking the stuff the night before in several local hostelries.

Tackled on the issue, the First Minister admitted he should have said "in decline" rather than stone cold dead in the market.

There are many good reasons for visiting the Welsh capital and supping Brains Dark is one of them. This is a succulent brew with masses of liquorice and chocolate character thanks to the use of heavily-roasted malts. Stewart Dobson of Brains says that while sales are in decline, the beer remains an important part of the company's portfolio. Its fortunes have been boosted by the addition of a "smooth" (nitro-keg) version of the beer, which suits pubs and bars that can't handle the cask version.

There are around 100 versions of mild listed in Camra's Good Beer Guide, which suggests there is still

a healthy demand for the style. May is traditionally the month when Camra stages a mild celebration

and it's encouraging to find that national brewer Greene King has joined forces with the campaign to promote its XX Mild.

Clearly, on the back of the cask beer revival, mild ale is finding

new favour. That's good news, for we were in danger of losing one of our historic beer styles. It's difficult to imagine, when mild accounts for around 1% of total beer sales today, that until the 1950s it was the most popular beer in Britain.

Mild emerged as a style in the late 18th century as drinkers rebelled against the extreme bitterness of existing stouts and porters and demanded a sweeter and less heavily hopped brew. As the industrial revolution created industries with large workforces, mild suited a new army of workers who needed not only refreshment but also sugar in their beer to restore lost energy.

Pale ale arrived in the 19th century, but this was an expensive beer, consumed mainly by the middle class. Mild remained the working man's pint well into the 20th century. In 1959, mild accounted for 42% of total beer sales, twice as much as draught bitter. But by 1964 sales of mild had fallen to 33% and by 1969 it was overtaken for the first time by draught bitter.

Since then the fall in sales has been steep and almost terminal. Drinkers moved away from mild for a number of reasons. From the 1960s on, there has been a trend towards lighter-coloured beers, wines and spirits. Mild was seen, by the aspiring younger generation, as a beer with a cloth-cap image they wished to discard. And it suffered as a result of the sharp decline in Britain's manufacturing base. There were no longer legions of coal miners, steel workers and ship builders in need of a sweetish, restorative beer.

But even when mild was in the doldrums, there were still pockets of support for the style. Bathams and Holden's in the Black Country have continued to brew fine examples of the style while in Manchester Hydes, Holt's and Lees have excellent milds in their brewing lockers: Hydes even produces both a light and dark version of its mild.

In Liverpool, Cains Dark Mild continues a Merseyside tradition of the style that was developed to counter the large volumes of Guinness Stout that flooded into the area from Dublin in the 19th and 20th century. At a time of often desperate poverty on Merseyside, many people of Irish descent could not afford Guinness and local brewers offered in its place a more roasty and bitter interpretation of dark mild.

Today drinkers are choosing mild for different reasons. There is a growing interest in dark beers: as well as mild, British interpretations of porter and stout are finding favour, while Budvar Dark from the Czech Republic has become something of a cult beer since it was introduced here in 2005.

Camra's Mild Month 2008 has something to celebrate. The style, hanging on by its fingertips for decades, has now clambered back over the cliff face. So look on the bright side of dark, Rhodri Morgan.