Dark Star has announced it once again be the vehicle to bring back a world famous, historic beer that was first produced almost 100 years ago – Prize Old Ale.

The beer, George Gales Prize Old Ale, was first released back in 1923 Gales Brewery in the village of Horndean. The latest version of the beer will include some of the last drops of the original Prize Old Ale which was last brewed back in 2011 by Gale’s brewers at the Fullers Brewery.

Thanks to people like John Keeling and Henry Kirk formerly from Fullers and Dark Star the beer was kept and protected in tanks for the last 12 years at the Fullers brewery. Since then, it has seen a couple of releases over the years but has not been brewed regularly since the closure of the brewery. Dark Star first brought the beer back in 2022 and now commits to brew the beer every year as an annual release.

For 2023 Dark Star Lead Brewer Sven Hartmann and former Gales Brewer Anthony Smith worked together to brew a fresh batch of the original POA recipe

He said: “The beer was brewed using a combination of traditional ale malt, wheat for mouth feel, roasted malts and brewers invert sugar, which provides the beer with a deeper richness in flavour and notes of stone fruit.

“The new batch of Prize Old Ale was allowed to ferment with the original Gales yeast which was transferred in liquid form from the Fullers brewery who still manage the original yeast strain for beers like HSB.

“After fermentation, the beer was blended at a 50/50 rate into the original batch of Prize Old Ale and allowed to mature for 3-4 months until it was packaged. The original batch of Prize Old Ale was carefully tankered from the Griffin Brewery to Meantime where it will be housed going forward.”