IF you have started the new year with a resolution to consume fewer calories, then a lower alcohol beer from Devizes brewery Wadworth might appeal.

The beer, called Best Intentions, has been brewed to appeal to customers who tend to cut down after the festive celebrations.

Wadworth has brewed the beer for the past two years but has changed its name from Small Beer.

Head brewer Brian Yorston said it took a few weeks for him and his team to create the recipe and they had avoided the traditional curses of lower alcohol beer of poor body and weak flavour.

Mr Yorston said: “It is a real challenge to create a lower alcohol beer with a full flavour.

“This beer has an ABV of only 2.8 per cent and yet we have managed to give it impressive depth by using six different malts along with three hops added at various phases of the brew.

“The result is layers of flavour and a beer with complexity and body.

“We spent a lot of time getting this beer right. It takes a lot of skill to brew a beer with less alcohol in it.

“I have brewed quite a few low alcohol beers in my career and you do lose a lot of body and you have to add flavour, which comes from the malts and hops.

“In previous years people have liked it. One of the responses we got from a country pub was that motorcyclists, who don’t want too much alcohol, can have a pint of this and they should be okay to drive.”

It will be stocked in Wadworth pubs throughout January. Mr Yorston said there were no plans to sell it all year round.

“There isn’t the demand to brew it all year round. The market for low alcohol beers isn’t quite there yet. In 2012 and 2013 our lower alcohol beer sold reasonably well but after January people tend to go back to the traditional beers,” he said.

Best Intentions contains 150 calories per pint compared to about 210 in Wadworth 6X. It is also on sale at a lower price than Wadworth’s other ales, due to the beer duty relief on beers of 2.8 per cent, at £2.50 a pint.

Best Intentions is a dark mahogany beer with an aroma of coffee and a slight hint of blackcurrant.

The beer has a sweet floral aroma followed by a body crammed with roasted malt, with a final burst of bitterness.