Autumn is upon us with a chill in the air and the need for a warming beer. What could be better than two welcome old friends: Fuller’s Vintage Ale and Young’s Winter Warmer.

The Fuller’s beer is treated by beer lovers with the respect given by wine drinkers to the annual vintage from Bordeaux.

Some 50,000 bottles of the 8.5 per cent ale are produced every year and they sell within weeks of leaving the brewery in Chiswick, West London.

Vintage Ale is brewed with different malts and hops each year and its supporters mark each annual bottling to see which year’s offering they prefer. They also lay down a bottle or two: the beer is packaged with live yeast and its flavours will deepen and improve with age.

Vintage Ale was first brewed in 1997 by Fuller’s revered head brewer Reg Drury. It was based on an existing beer, Golden Pride, a barley wine that is pasteurised before bottling.

Reg used the same recipe for Vintage but conditioned it in the brewery for a month and then filtered it and re-seeded it with fresh yeast.

When Reg retired Vintage has been continued by John Keeling, Georgina Young and Guy Stewart. John Keeling has retired but acts as Fuller’s beer ambassador.

Georgina Young has moved to Cornwall where she is head brewer at the St Austell Brewery and Vintage Ale is now in the safe hands of Guy Stewart, with John Keeling keeping his beady eye on his beloved beer baby.

The 2023 version is brewed with pale malt and a special grain called Double Roasted Crystal or DRC for short.

Crystal malt is made in a similar manner to toffee and adds notes of dark fruit to finished beer. DRC is heated to a high temperature and gives not only a deep amber colour to the beer but also flavours of butterscotch, raisins and sultanas.

The hops are two English varieties, Godiva and Jester, that contribute spicy and peppery notes. Fuller’s house yeast adds an orange marmalade flavour.

This immensely complex beer has dark fruit, butterscotch, caramel and spicy hops on the palate and finish. It will be available from branches of Waitrose at £7 a bottle or it can be bought online from www.fullers.co.uk.

Young’s was once Fuller’s friendly rival in London but the Wandsworth brewery closed in 2006 and its beers are now owned by a giant national group, the Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Company.

I am not in favour of mergers, with beers being shunted around the country, but when I sampled the 2022 version of Winter Warmer in Alban’s Well on St Peter’s Street it was in fine fettle.

The 2023 vintage of the five per cent beer will go on sale later this month. It’s a cask-conditioned draught beer and, unlike Fuller’s Vintage, the recipe doesn’t change from year to year.

It’s brewed with England’s finest malting barley, Maris Otter, with a touch of crystal malt for colour and flavour. The hops are two famous English varieties, Fuggles and Goldings, that date from the 18th and 19th centuries. They add not only a deep bitterness to beer but notes of pepper and spice.

The copper-coloured beer has a strong vinous note alongside rich biscuit malt and spicy hops and is a good companion for meals. Watch out for it later this month.

There’s more good cheer from the Thornbridge Brewery in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Real ale has been struggling to revive following Covid and pub lockdowns but Thornbridge reports that sales of its superb IPA, Jaipur, and its other cask beers are enjoying a 30 per cent increase in sales.

There’s another good reason to raise a glass and toast our national drink.