The autumn launch of Fuller’s Vintage Ale is greeted by beer lovers with the same enthusiasm as the arrival of the latest Bordeaux wine from France.

Vintage Ale proves that beer can be just as rich and complex as the fruit of the vine.

At 8.5 per cent and with each bottle containing a small amount of yeast, this is a beer that will continue to ferment, age and improve over many years.

There were fears that when the giant Japanese brewer Asahi bought Fuller’s Brewery in Chiswick, West London, in 2019 it would phase out smaller brands such as Vintage Ale and concentrate on the brewery’s major beers, London Pride and ESB.

But Asahi has kept faith with Vintage and the new edition is now ready to delight drinkers.

Unlike a vintage wine, which is made from the same grape varieties every year, Vintage Ale is brewed with different malts and hops for each edition.

But each vintage will have similar characteristics due to the orange fruit note from the brewery’s house yeast culture.

The beer was first brewed in 1997 by the then head brewer Reg Drury. He adapted a barley wine called Golden Pride that was filtered and pasteurised but his vintage ale was conditioned in the brewery for several weeks and was then reseeded with fresh yeast when it was bottled.

The beer is so popular that some 50,000 bottles are produced every year, individually numbered and presented in an attractive claret box.

When Reg Drury retired, Vintage Ale was produced by his successor John Keeling. John is now Fuller’s Beer Ambassador and he joined the current head brewer Guy Stewart for a tasting at the brewery of the new vintage with chosen beer writers.

The 2024 beer is brewed with pale malt, which has the sugars needed for fermentation, along with extra dark crystal malt that gives a caramel, fruit cake and raisin note to the beer.

Three hops are used: Emperor, Pilot and a variety numbered CF299 that’s so new it doesn’t have a name yet.

It was bred in this country but cultivated in the United States where the warm sunshine and plentiful rain in the Pacific North-west region gives the hop a ripe peach note.

John Keeling says Vintage Ales are at their best after 10 years and he proved the point by producing some earlier editions of the beer.

The 2009 beer was brewed with East Kent Goldings hops and a barley variety called Tipple. It had a dark chestnut colour from darker malt with caramel, orange and vanilla flavours.

The 2016 version used Super Styrian hops from Slovenia and it had a Christmas pudding character, with plums and spicy hops.

The 2003 edition, which proved to be the beer writers’ favourite, was brewed with England’s finest malting barley, Maris Otter, and hopped with Challenger, Northdown and Target varieties. It had spicy hops and marmalade fruit on the aroma and palate.

The oldest beer available was the 1999 vintage brewed with Optic malt and Fuggles hops. It had profound notes of dark, burnt fruit, roasted malt, caramel and vanilla.

John and Guy explained that with bottle-conditioned beers yeast continues to nibble away at the malt sugars while also producing proteins and amino acids that help the beer age and mature.

The end result is an example of British beer at its complex best. It’s advisable to buy more than one bottle and store a few for future pleasure.

The 2024 vintage is on sale in selected Tesco and Waitrose stores at £7 bottle or it can be ordered from the Fuller’s online shop: www.fullersbrewery.co.uk.

This is the final call for St Albans Beer Festival, Alban Arena, 25-28 September.

Don’t miss the wide selection of beer and cider along with live music and street food.

There are still a few tickets left for my talk and tasting with Thornbridge Brewery on Friday evening: www.stalbansbf.org.uk.