Global brewers Asahi have announced that Dark Star Hophead, one of the iconic beers of hop forward UK brewing will be reduced in strength from 3.8% to 3.4%. It means Asahi pay less duty but of course the price on the bar won’t change.
Asahi say they have carried out careful matching to make sure the taste of the beer is not different. We shall see. Its quite possible to brew excellent low strength beer. Think of Kernel Table Beer, Redemption Trinity at 3% or more recently Pressure Drop Ja! at 3.2%.
Those beers however were specifically brewed at that strength.
Dark Star started in the basement of the Evening Star pub in Brighton. A stand alone brewery ran in Sussex from 2001 and was bought by Fullers in 2018. Fullers sold out to Asahi in 2019 who moved brewing of Dark Star beers to Meantime in Greenwich. Asahi then shut that and the beer is now brewed at Chiswick.
One wonders where this will end up…
One of the best lower abv beers out there is Burning Sky Plateau, also reduced to 3.4% from 3.5% I suspect all that changed was the labels not the recipe. Brewed by the brilliant Mark Tranter, previously of Dark Star.
I have seen comments that Hophead has lost some flavour, though I think that had previously happened anyway. Though whether that is the beer or people’s tastes changing is another question.