OUT with the old, in with the new. A Hampshire brewery has ditched the fuddy-duddy image of one of its beers for this eye-catching makeover.

Ringwood Brewery, behind best-seller brands like session bitter Ringwood Best and extra strong Old Thumper, needed to give its mid-strength Fortyniner a sales boost.

Brewery marketing spokesman Susie James said they want to dump the image of a bearded, real ale aficionado propping up the bar and appeal to young men and women instead.

An ad agency looked at Fortyniner's golden hue, compared supping it to the "rush" of riding a wave and came up with the picture of a hunky surfer on a freshly poured pint.

Susie said: "What we want to do is give the beer an identity. Old Thumper has its boar's head with its idea of strength. It's the wild boar of beers.

"The Best is linked to Ringwood.

"We felt that Fortyniner was an ideal candidate to have a very young image, to appeal to the younger market - and women.

"So far we feel that it has been very well received.

"We have had good feedback from customers and staff, which we're really thrilled about, because this is the first of this kind of project we've done.

"It's very contemporary and hope-fully appealing to a wider audience.

"We want to tell people: 'These bubbles are real, we didn't put them in. It's refreshing, it's tasty and it should be tried'."

As well as going on beer mats and T-shirts the surfer will appear on the backs of brewery drays.