His family is linked through marriage to that of Charles Hall, who first brewed for his farm-workers, then founded the company in 1777. "We are committed to making characterful beer, and running individualistic pubs."The future of such beers and such pubs depend upon people like Woodhouse retaining their energies and not treating a family heritage as a cash cow. This beer does, indeed, have a resiny hop aroma - and a great deal of flavour for its weight."We have continually to delight our customers," says managing director David Woodhouse, a trifle quaintly. Hall and Woodhouse's yeast is very fruity, in this instance seeming citrusy or melony.I pick up a more pineapple-like fruitiness from the yeast, intertwining with a scenty, lemon-peel, quinine bitterness from the hop variety Challenger in the brewery's nationally-known ale Tanglefoot. This balancing act in the creation of a beer is far less simple than it sounds. The hops and malt are boiled in the brewing process, bonding in unpredictable ways, their flavours intensifying with evaporation.

The sweetness can also be concentrated by caramelisation in the kettle. Later, much more complex aromas and flavours can be added by the yeast during fermentation and maturation. They were being employed in Britain, along with ingredients like marjoram and wild thyme, in the 17th century, when hops were still fighting for acceptance.In the Hall and Woodhouse elderflower brew, to be known as Badger Champion Golden Ale, the aromas and flavours are uncluttered, because the beer is, so to speak, a single malt It is made entirely from a clean, biscuity, pale-ale malt. Tasting this blind, I had it down as a definite contender: a head like ice-cream, a sherbety aroma, sweet lemons in the palate, and a suggestion of coriander in the finish. Number One, the winner, was a beer as yet unnamed, from the Badger Brewery of Messrs Hall and Woodhouse, in rural Blandford, Dorset This beer, too, had been on my list.

It had a tangerine aroma, a touch of vanilla, and a floweriness in its dry finish. Even a single sip set me thinking of fresh, sunny spring days and a glass of beer with lunch in the garden.Had the beer been flavoured with fruit or flowers? Or were these the aromas and flavours that are found among the essential oils of the hop, itself a flower-like cone? "That is exactly the question we hoped you would ask," smiled brewer Barry Mailes when I visited Hall and Woodhouse a few days later. "We could have found these characteristics in the hop - perhaps an American Northwestern variety like Mount Hood - but they would have come with resiny, earthy notes that we did not really want."The answer to my question was that a quite hefty lacing of elderflower essence had been used, along with a very light dose of hops This use of elderflowers in beer is not as odd as it seems. The three beers to win the highest ratings go on sale in Tesco next month.They were announced to us in reverse order, as though it were a beauty competition. I was invited, along with a team of fellow critics, to judge the entries. Faced with a table-full of anonymous bottles, we were asked to score the beers for aroma, flavour, finish and satisfaction There was to be no conferring.