Warming to Winter Warmer in the season of seasonal beers

Spotting a blackboard on the pavement outside The Highbury Vaults we both gasped with delight: Young’s Winter Warmer is on! Coming out of the misty cold, navigating through the crowded bar, we ordered Winter Warmer, of course, and carried out treasure to a table in the backroom. Then we looked at our pints – brown, glinting red, with an off-white foam – and thought, wait, what are we so excited about, exactly? We’re not even sure, without checking, who owns the brand and where the beer is brewed these days. (Carlsberg, in Burton, we think.) What’s thrilling about it is, we think, its position in four dimensions. For one thing, it’s a relic of the past, so something to be treasured. In fact, it’s a relic of several pasts. In terms of deep history, it’s a surviving example of a ‘Burton’, as the late Martyn Cornell explained in a memorable early blog post: The recipe for Greene King Burton Pale Ale is absolutely typical of the Burton Ale style: pale ale and crystal malts, brewing sugar…

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