Hello, and welcome back to another episode of what's in the fridge today?
As per my usual rules, I've done a bit of DIY to earn my beer today - a little bit of render on an outside wall and BAM! Beer earnt.
Out of the threatening shark infested can it pours a rich brown colour with a 2cm dark head that quickly disappears into the atmosphere, like releasing a bunch of balloons filled with helium back into the 'wild', never to be seen again.
The smell is rich with coffee beans and smooth vanilla - reminds me of when using a coffee machine with one of those paper filters – that smell that lingers from the top of the machine.
It has perfect carbonation – I don’t like stouts that are lager levels of fizz – that can make the richness of the oats and other ingredients that are meant to smooth out the beer become sickly and short lived. The coffee takes on different roles here: the dark roast flavour is the first thing you taste, espresso like, with the bitterness of the coffee balanced alongside chocolate, then vanilla enters the show. Finally then the coffee lightens towards the end and as you breathe in: it is a warm coffee smell/taste that it finishes on.
It coats your tongue and is smooth and oily - in a good way!
Overall, It is a heavy beer; dense; it is almost possible to cut this beer with a knife, but the flavours are great, especially if you let it warm for a few minutes, that coffee and chocolate are allowed out of their temperature controlled cages.
One of the most simple stouts I've had, but fantastically well done.
8/10
-Ben