For the first time in almost a century, a classic Victorian barley variety will be available for beer lovers to taste. Beers made from Chevallier, a classic heritage barley of the Victorian period, will be brewed once more thanks to the efforts of scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich.

According to the Institute's scientists, old varieties can be a rich source of new genes; researchers at the John Innes Centre revived Chevallier from the institute’s Genetic Resources Unit as part of a barley improvement project. Historic records indicate that the variety produced premium quality malt and good yields.

The revival forms part of a £250,000 project, which aims to explore the commercial potential for creating new varieties from heritage barleys and investigating the best growing methods.

Project leader Dr. Chris Ridout said, "We wanted to find out how the variety performed, what the malt was like and how the beer tasted." Dr Ridout and his team revived the variety from seed in the Genetic Resources Unit and started to evaluate its performance. Working in collaboration with the University of Sunderland and industry partners, the scientists discovered that Chevallier had valuable disease resistance that can prevent contamination of grain with mycotoxins, which are a concern in the malting industry.

In 2012, the team produced half an acre of the barley. The grain was then floor-malted by Crisp Malting Group at Great Ryburgh, Norfolk. Deemed a success, more of the barley will be grown in two locations this year, using both traditional and modern methods.

"We found that we brought back to life a distinctive malty flavour suited to certain types of beer, such as Porter and India Pale Ale, which were popular in the Victorian period," said Dr Ridout."We are now performing genetic analyses which will help us understand how valuable traits such as disease resistance, malting quality and nitrogen use are inherited."

A small brewer and pub in Norwich will trial the variety this month in the form of a 'heritage special bitter.' Dr. Ridout has registered Chevallier as a conservation variety.