Eating isn't Cheating: Beer Reviews

Showing posts with label Beer Reviews. Show all posts

Briefly on Brettanomyces

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, October 01, 2015

Brettanomyces yeast, or ‘Brett’ if you’re getting your beer-geek on, is a totally ridiculous thing to add to beer. It undoes half of the hard work the brewer did in getting the beer to this point unscathed. It knocks the citrus out of a hoppy beer, it roughs up the edges of a sparklingly clear pale ale, it creates a slightly sour, dusty base note that scratches at the back of your throat as you dive in lips first through a dauntingly rocky white head of froth expanding from the glass.

In general, it totally fucks a beer up beyond recognition - and boy do I love it.

There’s just something about brett that adds a complexity to beer, even an extra level of dry refreshment – thanks perhaps to some of the remaining sugars in the beer being gobbled up by the hungry invader – that makes it equally recognisable and addictive.

It’s a little bit wild, rough even, but used right it can be beautifully balanced too. It takes beer in a new direction, makes Orval one of the greatest beers in the world, and elevates the Straffe Hendrik Tripel ‘Wild’ to the next level. Dusty in a good way, horseblanket if you’re feeling fancy, dry in a salted cracker sense, bitter like dried herbs.

Delicious in more ways than you can put your finger on.

Wensleydale Brewery

Wensleydale Brewery Bitters: A masterclass in British balance

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Monday, August 22, 2011

Wensleydale Brewery have got a foot firmly in the ‘traditional’ camp when it comes to the styles of beers they produce. Unashamedly British and with a variety of 'uncool' bitters in their lineup, they aren't mimicking the Yanks or messing about with Black IPA's, they're just making tasty, quality beers with clever hopping and the lightness of touch which made British brewing famous in the first place. You won’t find a Triple Dry Hopped Cherry Matured Imperial Stout in their roster of wares, but you will find some truly well made, perfectly balanced British Bitters, which to my mind is a much more impressive achievement.

Of course, Wensleydale don't just make Bitters, but these three were really good and I think the British Bitter needs a bit of standing up for, which is what I'm trying to do here. I tried the following three beers over a number of evenings last week, and here’s what I thought:

Wensleydale Falconer Session Bitter 3.9%

This pours an orange/copper/red. Light carbonation and a small white head. The aroma is sweet and caramelly with just a hint of straw. The taste initially delivers that caramel sweetness, and then you get a sort of toffee wafer maltyness alongside a hint of fruity golden sultana and a little bitter lemon. The light to medium mouthfeel and fresh flavours make this hugely drinkable, as a Session Bitter should of course be.

The finish is dry yet bittersweet with lingering flavours of citrus and light caramel. It's moreish, easy drinking and refreshing, yet that sweetness gives it a really nourishing quality, I could imagine this being a great beer to down after a hard days work. Which is exactly what it was brewed for.

Foresters Bitter 3.7%

Light golden lager like colour with a nice tight White head. The aroma is a little light grapefruit when you first pour then this subsides to be very faint and there's a grain and lemon aroma that comes in. The taste is light and quenching but there’s also a bitter citrus hop flavour that sits on top of grainy, clean malt, dry lemon pith and a light sweetness.

It finishes quite dry but overall this is a really balanced beer which perfectly demonstrates the lightness of touch which Wensleydale display in their beers. It's easy drinking yet flavoursome and probably my favourite of the two sub 4% bitters I tried.

Coverdale Gamekeeper Best Bitter 4.3%

The darkest of the beers so far – it’s a really nice orange and red tinged golden brown with the same white head, but a more solid consistency which helps it stick around.

There’s a very sweet aroma of caramel and sweet digestive biscuit malt. The flavour is stunning, that caramel sweetness is there to begin with but then gets knocked out of the way by dry, wafer like malt, and a slightly spicy bitter hop character.

It’s got that classic Best Bitter roundedness of flavour with a lovely interplay between sweet, malty, fruity, hoppy and dry - It's a balancing act, which they've pulled off perfectly.

The aftertaste is dry and there's a residual bitter sweetness from the combo of malt and hops. A really long lasting aftertaste on this one.

As with all the beers so far the carbonation is spot on and the mouthfeel is medium bodied and very cask ale like. Hard to do, and a job well done. Would love to try the cask version to compare.

Good best bitters (London Pride being a personal favourite) are a class act of subtlety, and this offering from Wensleydale is right up there. A wonderful beer.

A big thank you to Wensleydale for passing me these beers for a review. You can buy Wensleydale beer online at My Brewery Tap or Beer Ritz.

Nogne o

Black Tokyo* Horizon - BrewDog, Nøgne Ø, and Mikkeller's collaboration Imperial Stout

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Friday, August 12, 2011

Black Tokyo* Horizon is the result of a collaboration between three of the most exciting and innovative craft beer brewers in Europe; Brewdog, Nøgne Ø and Mikkeller, all of which have built a reputation for brewing bold and sometimes extreme beers with huge amounts of hops, higher ABV’s, and more weird and wonderful ingredients than any other brewers. They are, without a doubt, the beer geek brewers.

So what happens when you put these lot in a brewery together? Well, as you might have guessed, they’ve taken the saying “go big or go home” to a new extreme and produced a beer which almost buckles under its own weight - another kilo of malt and this might just have been too much, but as it stands, they’ve created something really quite special.

The recipe for the beer is a fusion of each brewery’s flagship Imperial Stout; Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon, BrewDog Tokyo*, and Mikkeller Black, with massive amounts of flavour, strength and a formidable ABV of 17.2%.

Enough foreplay, what’s the beer like?

Black Tokyo* Horizon pours a completely and utterly impenetrable black, zero light coming through, with just the faintest tint of dark brown near the edges. A brown cola bubble head quickly disappears and leaves very little trace apart from a few tiny bubbles near the edges, not unexpected for a beer of this strength.

This beer initially smells quite savoury, with a of sort soy sauce aroma, before the reduced, bitter chocolate syrup and herbal gin-like alcohol comes through alongside a faint redcurrant fruitiness.

A moment of hesitation before the first sip; how big is this going to be?

The taste is initially dominated by sweet, dark brown sugar but then you get a really big surge of warmth from the alcohol and a smack of that syrupy dark chocolate hinted at in the aroma. In the middle flavour you get chocolate coated bitter coffee beans, black cherry, dried cranberry, chocolate toffee and intensely reduced redcurrant jam. The finish is sweet, boozy, and chocolaty with an intense fruitiness and just a hint of aromatic dryness and a herbal smokiness – a bit like burnt rosemary twigs.

The mouth feel is extremely thick, slick and syrupy with low carbonation and a definite chewy quality. Just a touch of alcohol burn greets you in the swallow but mainly there’s just a furry warmth to the whole thing which adds to the intensity of the flavours.

It really delivers on what I was hoping for; intense in every way, with big aroma, massive depth of flavour, and a mouth feel like crude oil.

Be warned though, this is a huge beer. It's almost liqueur like in its intensity, and the thick and syrupy body combined with the big sweetness, alcohol warmth and intense chocolate and fruit flavours make it pretty heavy going. But take your time, give it a chance to warm up in the glass and breathe a bit, and Black Tokyo* Horizon will reward you with a depth and intensity of flavour which is seldom found in a beer.

It’s undoubtedly a bit of an effort, but for me personally, it's an ultimately satisfying and rewarding one.

You can buy Black Tokyo* Horizon online at the BrewDog shop. My recommendation would be to buy two - one to drink now, perhaps shared with a few friends, and one to lay down for drinking in a year or so’s time.

Big, high strength Imperial Stouts like this keep very well and will change and mature for years, so are perfect for ageing. I’ve written before about the importance of drinking pale, hoppy beers fresh, but Black Tokyo* Horizon is completely the other end of the spectrum, and can only get better with time.

Massive thanks to James from BrewDog for sending this through for review.

Imperial Stout

BrewDog AB:06 Imperial Black IPA

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, August 04, 2011

The Abstrakt range from BrewDog fills a gap in the market for beers which have been pushed to the limits of decency, taken to the extremes of a style and brewed with more hops, more diverse malts, higher ABV’s and more unusual flavours than anything else available in the UK.

That said, I hasten to use the term ‘extreme beers’ as that implies something which has been pushed too far, and I don’t think that’s what the Abstrakt range represents. These beers have been taken to the outer limits of their particular styles but aren’t some sort of super hot chilli that’s just there to be eaten for a dare, they are there to be enjoyed for what they are - very good beers.

AB:06, the sixth and final beer in BrewDog’s most recent Abstrakt range, is an 11.2% Triple Dry Hopped Imperial Black IPA which, as with all of the Abstrakt beers, is bottle conditioned and presented in a swanky corked and caged dark green bottle. BrewDog recommend you drink one bottle fresh and keep one for a year or two so you can see how the beer changes with ageing – which is exactly what I’ll be doing.

BrewDog AB:06 Imperial Black IPA 11.2%

AB:06 Pours a dark hazy brown from the bottle but once in the glass appears a slick almost impenetrable black with a slightly hazy unfiltered look to it and a small beige head which quickly dissolves to a small ring, as you’d expect at this ABV.

The smell is really powerful with sticky, resinous hop oils, bitter grapefruit and rich chocolate pudding, as well as a sweet and very reduced boozy mincemeat undercurrent which reminds me of a big barley wine.

In the taste there’s initially loads of thick, bitter dark chocolate and hints of citrus fruit - like a rich chocolate pot with a blast of orangey boozyness. That chocolate malt dominates but you also get a slight roasted filter coffee flavour before everything is completely bowled over by massive hop bitterness and flavours of orange syrup, dried apricot, grapefruit, pine resin, and a kind of dried mango herbal quality. After the whack of hops and sweet booze you get just a hint of alcohol burn that disappears before you really notice it, and an aftertaste of bitter dark chocolate and resinous hops.

As the beer warmed up (this is after all a beer to be sipped and enjoyed over an hour or so) I got more hardcandy sweetness and a fruity, barleywine like richness.

Imagine a strong, chocolatey imperial stout brewed with an insane dry hopping schedule, and you’re not far off the mark.

Big thanks to James from BrewDog for sending this through for a review. AB:06 is currently out of stock on the BrewDog website but you can join the Abstrakt Addicts Club online at the BrewDog store which ensures you get the beers before anybody else. Alternatively Beer Ritz in Leeds still has some in stock.

The Kernel

The Kernel Brewery - hitting home run, after home run

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Friday, July 01, 2011

There are a lot of things I like about Kernel. I like that they are a genuinely tiny artisan craft brewer, I like that their bottles look put together by hand and that there is a distinct lack of branding (or very clever minimalistic/naturalistic branding perhaps), and I like that they seem to just produce a beer then sell it, with little fanfare and generally in small batches.

But all of that is completely trivial compared to what the beer inside the bottle tastes like, and the thing about Kernel is that, on top of the aforementioned merits, the beer inside the bottle is consistently, almost unexplainably brilliant. The Kernel beers I've tried, such as their awesome Black IPA, have ranged from very good to jesus-christ-I-want-to-drink-this-forever amazing.

At the end of a recent weekend trip to London I was in The Euston Tap having a few drinks before getting my train back to Leeds and wanted a bottle to take and drink on my way home, something Imperial Stout-like, a sipper for the long journey. I didn't fancy spending a small fortune on a big beer from America so the ever helpful barman reccommended the Kernel Export Porter, which he told me weighed in at 8.5% although on closer inspection it was actually 6.5%, but that doesn't really matter.

Now, I've Googled Kernel Export India Porter and I can only find mention of a 5.7% version, whereas the one I tried stated an abv of 6.5%, which because of Kernels habit of brewing different batches and versions of beers I'm going to assume is correct. Not sure whether it's still available or not, but I'm sure if they've got another 'Export India Porter' available it will also be great, so give that a try.

NB - 'Export India Porter' might sound like a weird beer style but actually Porter was being exported to India from Britain around the same time we were sending over super-hopped pale ales (not yet called 'India Pale Ales') for the famously thirsty British Raj. Pete Brown's book 'Hops and Glory' has loads of great info about this and is a genuinely interesting and exciting read, part travel book, part historical beer quest, and interspersed with warm humour, if you're interested in beer then it's a book you have to read.

Kernel Export India Porter 6.5%

This pours more like a stout than a porter, with a thick looking body and tight off white head. There's a big fruity aroma of stewed orange and citrus, with a faint background milk chocolate.

In the taste there's a definate chocolate-orange flavour fom the combination of juicy, fruity, dry hops and sweet chocolate malt. A little light smokiness and roasted malt, no coffee as such but there's a roasted richness in the background which does hint towards it. Also a light herbyness, almost like mint.

The mouthfeel is actually not too full bodied, with a fairly light mouthfeel which suits it's porter title, and as is the norm for Kernel there's perfect, mouth filling, soft carbonation.

There's a nice balance between sweet, savoury, juicy, bitter, which creates a really nourishing tasting beer. It tastes good for you somehow, with a lovely freshness.

Another home run from Kernel. These guys have seriously raised the bar.

p.s. YES that is a plastic cup, I know I know, after the hoo hah I made about drinking from the right glass, but I was on the train and needs must I'm afraid.

Williams Brothers

Red Hop Ales - The New Black (IPA)?

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Well hopped, slightly US inspired red ales seem to be becoming more and more popular with UK breweries.

Examples are already out there; I wrote recently about Rapture from Magic Rock, and of course BrewDog's 5am Saint has always been a great beer (although technically it's an 'iconoclastic amber ale' but lets not split hairs...) even Hardknott's Infra Red could probably be cited as a current example, plus there's Rouge Hop from the ever reliable Summer Wine Brewery. Red ales as a style just have a fantastic depth of malt flavour that balances out heavy hopping really well, and you end up with a really tasty beer.

Perhaps Red is the new Black (IPA)? Maybe not, but I could definately see Red Hop Ales, or Hoppy Red Rye Ales, becoming something more and more breweries have a go at, because they are just so damn tasty.

In fact, it's quickly becoming a style that I actively seek out, to the point where if I had the choice between an IPA or a hoppy Red Ale from the same decent brewery I'd most likely choose the latter. Which, for a hop-head like me, is a dynamic shift.

A beer which I tried recently just about fits itself into this category, with a well-judged level of hopping riding on top of a complex red malt body, I'm talking about Williams Bros Cock o' the Walk Scottish Red Ale.

Cock o' the walk pours a bright clear red colour, pure scarlet infact, which you can't really see from my picture. Low carbonation with a small head that receeded to a thin ring, that said the carbonation in the body is perfectly fine. Light, dry, citrus hops and a little wheat biscuit in the aroma, a hint of sweet berry fruit syrup as well.

The flavour is faint dark berry fruit, plenty of sweet malt, with a nice complexity of different malt flavours including a dry biscuit note. Then comes a nice dryness in the finish from the citrussy hops.

It's a really nice, well balanced beer with a hugely complex and satisfying array of malt flavours, and just enough hops to keep everything in check. The only thing I would say is it might actually benefit from being served on cask to give it a bit of extra mouthfeel, which was possibly the only thing lacking from the bottle version.

Also, it's definately a British style red ale rather than a super hopped US inspired version, but it still has enough juicy hop character to keep it firmly in the modern style 'red ale' category.

Modern ERA as opposed to ARA perhaps?

You can buy Williams Brothers Beers online via their online shop, or at MyBreweryTap.

Thanks to Williams Brothers for sending this through for review.

Uinta Brewing

Uinta Brewing's Crooked Line Detour Double IPA - Beer Review

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Monday, May 30, 2011

This Detour Double IPA (9.5%) is part of a 'Crooked Line' series from Uinta brewing, which they say are a range of beers that side step traditional brewing techniques and ingredients and present a different approach to great beer. In fact, they don't say that, they say this:

"Our brewing odyssey is a thirsty quest to satisfy our obsession with beer. Marked with frequent diversions

and detours, our crooked path has taken us to some unexpected places. These adventures often culminate into late nights around a table, enjoying good food, artisan beer, and animated conversation.Our journey has ultimately led us here, on an innovative brewing escapade, an opportunity to brew outside the lines. Welcome to the Crooked Line, bent beers that side-step traditional brewing techniques and ingredients."

But that's a bit long winded isn't it?

Still, whatever their motivation, they've produced a fantastic beer, in one of the best looking

bottles I've seen in a while. Really unusual looking, creative, and just a touch weird, it works really well and definitely goes along with the 'Crooked' shtick that they're peddling. Zak commented on it being a great looking bottle a while back, but didn't go into much detail about the beer itself, something I'll try to rectify now (not that I can match his flowing prose of course).

It pours from the big 750ml corked and caged bottle a deep orange colour,

like a chunk of raw Amber, with a fluffy clean white head and very little carbonation.

You get sharp resinous hop oils on the nose, loads of pine resin, a little fresh pine needle and also touch of pineapple. There's a little bit of booze in the smell too, which is expected at 9.5%, but the overriding aroma are those big juicy hops.

The flavour is immediately bitter resinous hops, fresh pine and loads of pine resin aswell. Some bitter orange citrus oil, a little orange breadyness in the middle and again that slight fruity pineapple flavour fights to come through along with a faint bit of grapefruit. The mouthfeel is slick, smooth and slightly oily but that hop bitterness manages to keep it clean. The carbonation is perfect, not too heavy, and that pure white head sticks around and laces the glass. Impressive for a 9.5% beer. As it warms a little the booze becomes a touch more noticeable and warms your palate, but it never gets harsh, and for it's ABV remains dangerously drinkable.

This IPA has huge bitterness which follows through smoothly into the finish, there isn't a sudden dryness or bitterness that comes in, and in that sense it is very balanced and smooth. The bitter hops are constant and satisfying, but there's enough sweetness to keep your mouth from crippling and it finishes clean and dry with lingering pine and orange citrus oil.

It's a lovely beer, and one which I'm looking forward to drinking again.

The Kernel

The Kernel Brewery India Pale Ale Black 7.2% - Beer Review

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This is a review I've been meaning to post for a week or two but haven't got round to it, which is a travesty as this is a beer you should all be going out and buying.

Black IPA is a somewhat oxymoronic sounding beer style (black pale ale?), but when stylistic semantics are put outside you'll find it is actually one worth seeking out, generally delivering bags of roasted malt flavour and hop character to boot. I've really enjoyed Summer Wine Brewery's single hopped black IPA range Nerotype, particularly Simcoe hopped Nerotype #1, so was looking forward to trying this offering from the much lauded Kernel Brewery.

For those of you that haven't heard of The Kernel Brewery, they are a genuinely tiny 'Micro-Brewery'. Based under a railway arch in South East London, they have a very small output of very high quality beer which until recently hasn't been available up North, with just a handfull of London retailers being your only hope for grabbing a few bottles. Luckily Beer Ritz in Leeds recently took delivery of a few pallet loads, and as such I quickly hot footed it down and stocked up - I suggest you do the same.

The Kernel Brewery India Pale Ale Black 7.2%

This pours a very dark brown, almost black, with red brick tinges at the edges when held to the light and an off White frothy head. Really nice, fine bubbled carbonation from the spot on bottle conditioning. The smell is vibrant grapefruit and pithy orange combined with a rich smokeyness, a bit like barbecued citrus fruit. Imagine a grapefruit dusted with brown sugar and cooked over hot coals and you're not far away. You can really smell the high amount of hops as the aroma is instant but lasting, remaining clean and strong throughout the glass.

In the taste there's an initial juicy grapefruit flavour which is super super fresh, like it was bottled 5 minutes ago, then you get rich roasted filter coffee, bittersweet dark chocolate, a touch of stronger espresso in the finish along with a lingering orange peel and grapefruit hop flavour.

A bit of alcohol warmth comes into the smell as the beer warms up a little, but not to it's detriment and actually got better as it came up from fridge to closer to cellar temp as the roasted flavours came out more and all the hop flavours were even more noticeable.

Despite it being 7.2% I enjoyed this beer so much it was gone a little too quickly, always a good sign. It's a seriously tasty, drinkable beer, and when all's said and done, isn't that all that really matters?

Sunburst

Dark Star Sunburst Golden Ale - Beer Review

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Monday, May 23, 2011

This one surprised me a little bit. It takes quite a few sips to decipher, but once the flavours start coming through it's actually much more than a standard Golden Ale, something I probably should have expected from the consistently good Dark Star brewery.

It pours a wonderful bright gold colour, with light carbonation and a small head that stuck around and laced the glass. The smell is very light, there's just a little grapefruit, and a grassy hop freshness, but not too much else.

The taste is classic British style summer ale, very fresh and bitter with grapefruit and a slight peach flavour, backed up by sweet caramel and digestive biscuit from the light malt. In fact, as you drink that malt does build up to be quite strong, but is just about kept in balance by those tart, citrus hops. All in all it's a refreshing, summery golden ale with enough depth to keep things interesting and plenty of hops that help it work pretty well in bottle form.

With regards to being in bottle, it's worth mentioning that summery British Pale Ales or Golden Ales are a style I've had limited success with in bottles, generally I prefer them on cask as they can be a little thin and insipid in the bottle. This was hoppy and flavourful enough to stand up though. A great beer for enjoying in the sunshine.

From May to August Sunburst is also available on cask so keep an eye out in your local, as I think it would be even better served in cask form.

Thanks to Dark Star for sending me this beer for review. You can buy Sunburst, along with some of their other beers, online at mybrewerytap.com

Meantime

Meantime India Pale Ale - The best English IPA available in the UK?

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Tuesday, May 03, 2011

I'm a big fan of Meantime Brewery, they just seem to have an uncompromising respect for beer. They brew beers with an almost fanatical obsession to detail, and change the ingredients and methods completely to suit a certain beer style, without compromise. This means that they seem to have a flare for producing beers that are absolutely on-the-money in terms of their closeness to the ideal characteristics of a certain 'style'. It sounds simple, but so many breweries dont do it, and no matter what it says on the bottle you end up with their 'take' on a beer style rather than the genuine article. Meantime just do it properly; and I like that.

This fantastic fat bottomed bottle of Meantime India Pale Ale (7.5%) looks so good I feel bad opening it, the champagne corked and metal caged design is clean and sophisticated, and I must admit their distinctive shape suits these big bottles even more than the slightly piddly looking 330ml ones. I dont normally get into design but wow that's a good looking bottle!

The beer itself doesn't dissapoint either, It's an awesome bright orange colour. Fine (small bubbles) yet heavy (lots of them) carbonation that creates a nice big bubbly head that stuck around throughout the whole glass.

The smell is bitter hops, orange peel, pineapple a faint smell of soap, but also a very British IPA smell, not piney like big American IPA's tend to be. The taste is unbelievably well balanced, there's juicy, caramel hinted malt and sweetness at first, but then the malt and hops interplay to create one of the longest list of flavours I've ever experienced in a beer. It's hugely, unbelievably complex but remains balanced. You can taste bitter herbs, orange peel, white pepper, marmalade, bitter grapefruit, and loads more I couldn't put my finger on, there's also a very slight alcohol warmth that comes through more as the bottle warms a little.

Whilst most of these flavours are courtesy of the hops you also get the impression that they used tons of malt to balance against the heavy hopping, as you also get bready notes and a sort of banana toffee sweetness. There's lingering bitterness but nothing overpowering and overly drying, just enough to make you want another sip, and another, until that big bottle has all but gone. In other words, it's delicious.

The thing that's great about this beer is that if you look for all these flavours then they are easy to find, but because it's so balanced and drinkable you can just as easily sit back and simply enjoy it as an amazing beer.

I think it's the best British style IPA* I've ever tasted, but I'd love to know what you think, is there a better 'true to style' IPA out there?

*I.e. Not American/International style IPA's made in the UK, such as Punk IPA or Thornbridge Jaipur

Wright Brothers Oyster and Porter House

Beer Review: Meantime London Porter (M&S)

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, February 03, 2011

This is a beer I've bean meaning to review for some time now after it was recommended to me by a beer geek friend. I must admit I was a bit reluctant to trust Marks and Spencers with a Porter, I mean, what do they know? But then a quick Google search landed me with a piece of information that came like ruby red light at the end of a deeply dark tunnel; it's brewed by Meantime.

Based in Greenwich, (get it?) Meantime have built a solid reputation for producing high quality craft beers, and a flare for truly authentic traditional British styles. In other words, they are the perfect brewery to brew this Porter for M&S.

Personally I've had mixed experiences with Meantime beers. For example, I absolutely loved their Meantime London Stout on tap. I spent a good few hours, and a fair few quid, eating fantastic seafood and drinking stout at the unmatchable Wright Brothers Oyster & Porter House next to Borough Market. It was perfectly carbonated, smooth and rich with flavours of chocolate, light smoke, coffee and herbal hops - and utterly fantastic pint after pint.

On the other side of the spectrum, I found their Meantime Coffee Beer almost undrinkable. A mess of bitter, washed out filter coffee flavour fighting against a flat and slightly stale tasting body. Whether I got a bad batch I don't know, but from what I tasted it seems fitting that the beer no longer features on the brewery's homepage. That said, the eminently reliable Roger Protz didn't mind the beer when he reviewed it here, although I can detect in his tone a few extra points given for effort rather than achievement.

So on to the matter at hand. Well first of all it has to be said that this is a great looking bottle of beer. I think the meantime designers must have had a hand in the label design for M&S, because compared to their other offerings (Bull silhouettes on the Spanish Lager and a White Rose for the Yorkshire bitter) it's a bloody work of art.

The beer pours with a small bubbly head that quickly dissipates to a thing ring that leaves a small amount of lacing but never quite disappears, spot on for the style I'd say.

It has a crystal black colour that has edges tinged with ruby, almost raspberry red when held to the light, and equally the body actually looks more of a dark mahogany brown when light comes through.

There's a strong roasted smell when you first give it a sniff, but also strong, good milk chocolate and smoked malt come through, along with a very faint whiff of hops, but not strong enough to pin down further than that.

The beer starts very similar to the smell, with a big roasted malt flavour upfront. But then a big hop bitterness comes in and completely lifts the beer before it turns slightly sweet with milk chocolate and malt, then becomes slightly dry and smoky in the finish. It's very complex, and one of those beers which has a very clearly defined begin middle and end.

The mouthfeel is very smooth and rich, but also surprisingly light with a chewy character that manages to never become cloying. It's extremely refreshing for a beer with such strong flavours, and hides it's 5.5% extremely well. For me a porter should be drinkable and refreshing, with a strong hop profile to keep the roasted, malty, chocolatey flavours in check. This porter absolutely achieves that. It's one of the most true to style porters I've ever tasted; and excellent stuff from a great brewery.

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