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As I continue to slowly but surely demolish the 12 stouts of “Christmas”, I now come to the “Ultimate Stout”.  I believe this one is the base stout for some of their funkier brews, so it’ll be nice to see what the beginning is meant to be like.  The label has words like strong, black, unctuous and delicious on it.  It’s like Greg from Masterchef.  Oh hold on, he’s not black.  But anyway.  The beer says it’s made from a Belgian yeast strain and roasted malts… interesting.  No food to pair this with but at 7.7% ABV it’s a meal by itself.

Ultimate Stout (7.7%) comes packaged in a 500mL bottle and opens with an assertive hiss.  It pours very dark brown with a compact tan head, reminiscent of a Belgian dubbel, the bubbles are fine and moussey.  These slowly fade with no lacing to produce a patchy covering.

Aroma wise we get notes of rich dark chocolate, with booze-soaked christmas fruit. If Green & Black’s did a Christmas pudding…

Taking a taste, the mouthfeel is deceptive – I was expecting a lot of body but it’s medium/thin with a carbonic bite to it (that quickly fades).  I wonder if that’s a property of the yeast, or maybe they’ve used candi sugar.  The flavouring is very intense, I expected but didn’t get any kind of dry, sharp roast barley type flavour but did get a more rounded, boozy, black chocolate flavour.

I’d compare this with a boozy Belgian digestif type beer.  I think it would be formidible after some chocolate ice cream.  In fact, I might even go and make some with it in future… that’s one for the notebook.  The intense black chocolate flavour is comparable to a very high % cacao chocolate sauce.  The finish is alcoholic and slippery, but still quite pleasant, drying out on the tongue to maybe reveal hints of that elusive roast barley.  It’s hidden somewhere in there I think.  I also think the 500mL packaging may be a bit full on – I’m about 2 thirds through the bottle and I am quite sated.  This is coming from a guy who enjoys pints of DarkStar Imperial Stout at Glastonwick every year!

Rating: 4/5 (I’m going to give this one a bit of a break and round it up half a mark.  These guys clearly know their way around a stout and this is nice, but I think there’s a bit too much in a 500mL bottle.  Also: TODO: make some ice cream with it!)

So my Janopause is over, and I can drink beer again. Awesome. Although the diet is going so well, I think I will dial back the beer for a while. Still, today marks the end of my dry spell so I’m having a couple to celebrate.

Today I’m trying a couple, the first of which is Thwaites Old Dan. This was recommended to me by a friend. There’s a lot on the bottle about it being bottle conditioned, though I’m not sure what the fuss is about – there are lots of bottled conditioned beers out there. Still, it’s the right thing to do so I’ll let it slide.

They’ve helpfully listed the ingredients, which are: Maris Otter, Pearl and Crystal malts, Fuggles & WGV hops, and Thwaites yeast. It’s a strong one and promises fruit-cake flavours and it will mature well with age. My kind of beer!

I’m presuming that “Old Dan” is a dig/endearment at Daniel Thwaites, but I see no evidence on the bottle to support this… anyway, on with the good bit.

Thwaites Old Dan (7.4%) comes packaged in a 300ml brown bottle, opens with a moderate hiss and pours chestnut with a quickly-receding off-white head. The bubbles are quite large and visually, the beer looks fairly bubbly with sub-mm sized bubbles clinging to the side of the glass with a slow but steady stream of them flowing upwards.

On the nose we get a dry fruity aroma, with whiffs of boozy alcohol and a touch of toffee.

Taking a sip, the body is full and rich. The flavours are very powerful: rich dark fruit, raisins, burnt toffee and a touch of chocolate. The boozy alcohol is like a chocolate liqueur, hot and clinging to the edges of your tongue.

Theres little hop flavour to pick out but it is definitely there, having just made a beer with WGV I can pick that flavour out, perhaps the characteristic earthy fuggle is buried in with the fruit.

As the beer warms you get a little of the WGV on the nose as well, and unless I’m kidding myself, maybe a snatch of the minty fuggles aroma. I’m probably living a lie.

The boozy flavour is less evident as the beer warms, consequently the burnt toffee dominates, but I agree with the recommendation that it should be served cool, the flavours mingle very well that way.

Rating: 4/5 (overall a very nice beer. I will be saving some of these to mature and see what the future holds).

I picked up a bottle in The Rutland Arms in town, they also stock it in Waitrose.

Another mini review.  Picked this bottle up from Waitrose, a festive porter.

Lovely silky mouthfeel, roast coffee and definite chocolate malt combine to make a very satisfying beer.

A good mix of hops (Challenger, First Gold) round off the drink nicely and leave a well balanced flavour.  It’s finished off with a toasty aftertaste.

Perfect for Christmas night!

Mini-Rating: 4/5 (more please)

This little guy has been sat in the back of my fridge for a while, and rather than crack into my newer ones I thought I’d dust it off.  It came from the MBT 52WBC, and the label says it is “Inspired by the Red Planet, has a warm red glow and a smooth malty flavour”.  They brewed it for the Beagle 2 launch (cool!) and contains Dark Crystal and Progress hops with a hint of roast barley.

Mars Magic (4.6%) opens with a gentle hiss and pours ruby with a dense off-white head.  There’s an interesting toffee-apple aroma, I should have had this on bonfire night!  Fruity and caramelly.  Taking a sip, theres a very slick silky mouthfeel and a real toffee explosion – dried fruit, caramel, theres little hops on the flavour, but plenty in the aftertaste.  The aftertaste lingers a while, its astringent and broad – a pleasant counterbalance.

Letting it warm, the aroma becomes more roasted, and it carries through to the flavour.  Not so sweet now, more balance to it, there is a very interesting candied quality to the toffee, I guess that must be the dark crystal and roast barley mixing together.  Very nice.

This like many is a much tastier beer when let to warm up a little.  Very nice!

Rating: 4/5 (when warmed up, it would only be a 3 from the fridge despite its lovely aroma!)

So I was on the hunt for one of these after fellow imbiber Barl Fire recommended it in his list of top 5 UK IPAs.  I then got home and was putting some beers in my fridge, and lo and behold!  There was one in my MyBreweryTap 52W beer club.  Ace!

Acorn Conquest claims to be a well-hopped traditional IPA and promises citrus and a bitter finish.  I’m a fan of Acorn, their Gorlovka has had me on my arse a couple of times Let’s see what we have.

Conquest (5.7%) opens with an assertive loud fizz and pours light copper with a meringuey white head that slowly recedes, coating the sides of the glass as it goes.  A promise of hop oils to come?

The aroma is spicy and syrupy, almost candied oranges.  It’s not sharp, but it’s a broad aroma.  I did expect more of a hit but it’s very pleasant.  The mouthfeel is medium.  The flavour is where this ale kicks in, it’s very big!  There’s a definite citrus flavour front and centre, oranges.  It’s a very smooth drink but the bitterness builds in layers on your palate, delicious and clever.  It’s not all bitterness though, in the background theres a rounded sweetness that I wasn’t quite expecting, it’s a welcome counterbalance to the bitterness.  Taking a break, the bitterness recedes pretty quickly and you’re left with the familiar astringent tongue feeling that you get when it’s had it’s fill of hops.

Warmed a little, the aroma takes more of a caramelised aspect, still candied oranges.  The flavour really opens up, it’s delicious.  Theres a new, solid malt backbone to this beer that I never noticed.  Theres almost a syrupy feel to it and it perfectly balances with the hops.  You can’t tell it’s 5.7%, another dangerous beer!  The flavour is formidable, and very different from the comparative whelp it was when cool.  Drink this beer at 12 degrees C!

Rating: 4/5 (this beer is lovely, and I expect is exceptional on cask.)

So to go with the earlier Coronado review, Mermaid’s Red, this bottle of Coronado Islander IPA came from the formidable MyBreweryTap 52 Week US Beer Club.  It has a promising label, [saying it will] “sweep the senses with intense hop bitterness, complex flavours and aromas.”

Islander IPA (7.0%) comes in a 12fl.oz. bottle and opens with a short hiss.  It pours light copper, with a compact magnolia head and high carbonation.  It has a lovely aroma, bags of American hops, and a toffee-malty-biscuit background.  Taking a first sip, it has a very light body and a very powerful, astringent hop bitterness.  The malt cowers in the background.  There’s no way this tastes like a 7% beer – but I think even the alcohol has a hard time fighting past the flavour of these hops.  The taste is unbalanced in my opinion, but it may appeal to the hophead.  (Hey, I like Hardcore IPA, so I do like hops!)

Letting it warm for a bit get the best from this beer.  It’s still very bitter but theres some delicious malty sweetness that makes it through for a short while before it gets crushed by the bitter, broad astringency.  Still, no hints that it’s 7%.

One thing I will say:  It’s exceedingly refreshing.  It’s almost a ‘chuggable IPA’, because you lose that delicious malt flavour too quickly and you are tricked into taking another gulp.  Naughty!

Rating: 4/5 (if its warmed up a little, 3/5 when its straight out of the fridge.  I wish theyd just tone down the hops a tiny bit to let the malt shine, it could be fantastic)

This bottle of Sudwerk Marzen (5.3%) came as part of the MyBreweryTap 52W US beer club. I let my friend have the Pilsener but I wanted to keep the Marzen for myself. It claims to contain five different malts and to be a rich, amber-coloured Oktoberfest Marzen.

It comes in a 12fl.oz. bottle and doesn’t seem to have an ABV. So here goes. (upon Googling, it’s 5.3% – not too deadly!)

The bottle opens with an assertive hiss. The beer pours a rich golden amber colour with strong carbonation and a dense off-white head that settles slowly to a couple or three mm. On the nose we get malty toffee and some complex candied aromas.

The body is medium and silky. The taste is solid, clean malt – not much in the way of hops except a touch in the finish to balance out the sweetness. That said, right at the end as the flavour fades the hops are there again, spicy and assertive. Maybe something like Saaz or Mounthood?

The flavour really coats the tongue with malty, caramelly sweetness. The carbonation is enough to excite the tongue but not blemish the flavour. This beer is dangerously drinkable!

Not much else to say – I’m impressed with it. Its a tasty beer and I could imagine swilling quite a few of these if they were available to me. Shame I’m nowhere near Davis, CA!

Rating: 4/5 (who says I can’t enjoy a lager? huh?)

I picked this bottle up from the Dram Shop on Commonside, Sheffield along with refreshing my stash of La Trappe Quadrupel.  This stood out on the shelves for me, I do like a porter.  The label claims it’s viscous, bittersweet and dark.  Great.

Old Engine Oil (6%) opens with a robust hiss and pours inky black.  Holiding it up to the light betrays the tiniest crescent of chestnut brown round the edges, but this stuff is not giving us any colour.  A firm, tan head sits on top of the beer and slowly recedes to a few patchy mm, with very light lacing.  The aroma is bitter and burnt.  This is what I expect from a porter, I don’t need my hand holding!  The aroma almost gives up some smoky character, it’s very faint.  Old Engine Oil indeed!  The mouthfeel is fullbodied and viscous, it coats the tongue in a burnt malt flavour.  Theres a gentle sweetness alongside the bitterness in the finish, and you’re left with an almost burnt candied taste on the edges and front of your tongue as the flavour fades, it’s hard to describe.

Another few gulps and there is a definite bittersweet character building up in intensity, if you have ever had 99% Lindt chocolate its a little like that – not sweet in the traditional sense but powerful.  There’s little to no hop flavour or aroma in this beer, but plenty of bitterness to balance out that background sweetness.

Letting it warm, some coffee aroma comes through, and the sweet flavours start to overpower the bitterness a little.  The instructions on the bottle say it’s best chilled, I reckon a few minutes out of the fridge first would get you this beer at its best.

Finally as you get towards the bottom of the bottle, the warming alcohol says hello to remind you that it’s 6%.

Rating: 4/5 (a very nice drink for a cold, tired autumn evening.  Not sure I can drink more than one consecutively though!)

So, as we all know I’m a sucker for dark Belgian ales, especially those of Trappist origin.  Well, to mix it up a bit – this beer is from the Netherlands, the only authentic Trappist brewery outside Belgium.

La Trappe Quadrupel (10% ABV) gives off a very lively fizz as the cap is popped.  It’s definitely Trappist!  A large, moussey off-white head fills the glass and fades slowly, clinging to the sides and lacing as it goes.  Sounds like they’re using candi sugar to me  It pours a rich dark copper colour with a steady but slow carbonation of tiny bubbles.  There’s not much aroma straight off, a whiff of alcohol and vinous aromas reminiscent of a Chimay Blue.

A very full mouthfeel, silky on the tongue.  Not much bitterness at all, a very warming toffee flavour that clings to your tongue and hits your taste buds well after you’ve swallowed it.  It has a long warm finish betraying the high ABV, and the finish lasts a very long time, long after the flavour has gone.

Topping up the glass, I noticed the yeast isn’t very well packed, its floaty around the bottom fifth of the bottle.  I don’t care about that though!

Letting the beer warm a little, some sweetness comes out in the aroma,  and the carbonation becomes noticeable on the palate.

Rating: 4/5 (It’s a perfect beer for a cold night)

I picked up this bottle of Maredsous Brune 8 (8%) from my old local beer heaven, the Dram Shop on Commonside, Sheffield.  I am a sucker for anything dark and Belgian so I figured I’d pick one up while I was raiding the shelves.  I’d never actually had one of these before so I didn’t know what to expect.

It’s Belgian, so it opened with a loud hiss.  They love their carbonation!  It poured a lovely rich chestnut brown into the glass, with a billowing white/brown head.  It slowly settles down and laces the glass as it does so.  The aroma is a rich alcohol and dark sugar affair, you won’t be drinking this by the pint.  The mouthfeel is typical of the style; light, with a prickly carbonation on the tongue and a very warming background from the ABV.  The flavour when cold is hard to describe.  It tastes old and vinous.  Warming it up a little it exposes some burnt caramel flavour, maybe a touch of sweet chocolate or bonfire toffees.  The aftertaste is full and tingling, you can definitely feel the alcohol in this one.

Rating: 4/5 (A lovely last beer to finish off the day with.)