Every week, I’m going to try a bunch of beers so you don’t have to (though, I guess, if they’re good, you should try them too). In our very first post, let’s meet the beers I’ve been sipping on this week.
Stab In The Dark – Black Iris Brewery
Type: New Zealand Stout
Percentage: 5.0%
Aroma: This beer gently lifts into your nose like the scent of a milky dark chocolate with a dash of coffee. It’s a gentle odour for a flavourful beer, and is very inviting indeed.
Taste: I like a stout as much as the next man, but I usually know I’m in for a hearty, heavy beer when I take my first sip. Not with this though. This beer doesn’t hit your stomach like a half brick dropped from a height, but instead floats down like a fog on a winter’s night, and settle’s gently like a raven’s feather falling from the sky. It’s a soft and delicate beer that is ever more drinkable due to its creamy, smooth feel, and the gentle flavours it imparts. it lulls you a little into a false sense that this is an easily quaffable beer, but like any stout, you start to feel the weight of it early on, though it’s lingering softly bitter aftertaste, like a milky coffee, keeps you wanting to take another sip.
Who this beer is for: Stout drinkers will love it for its subtlety and gentle flavours, while it also makes a great drink for anyone looking to get into dark, rich beers as it’s wholly forgiving.
Pair with: I fancy a bacon sarnie with this one, though with red sauce – not brown. Oh and on white bread.
Jay IPA – Magpie Brewery
Type: British IPA
Percentage: 5.2%
Aroma: So flowery it set off my hay fever. There are so many blossomy scents that I was reminded of a tasteful jar of potpourri that one might find in a swanky hotel.
Taste: Boom – that’s some serious flavour. Exactly what you’d expect from a hoppy IPA, but this is somehow more so. There is no subtlety here, and frankly, this is a classic flavour reborn. It has all of those qualities you’d associate with a proper IPA – it’s refreshing, flavourful, hoppy and yet still traditional. It’s a very lively beer (as you’ll see from the photo above it took a while to settle) but once it does calm down enough to drink, it tastes more like an IPA than nearly any other IPA I’ve tried. The aftertaste is fruity and bitter – this is seriously worth trying.
Who this beer is for: IPA traditionalists and anyone looking for a refreshing drop on a warm day.
Pair with: It’s so traditional, I think it should be enjoyed with only old school beer snacks. Cheap pork scratchings, dry roasted nuts, Bacon Fries and salt n’ vinegar crisps. Do it proper.
Jungle Trip – The London Beer Factory
Type: New England IPA
Percentage: 5.3%
Aroma: Biting. Very much biting, with an almost chemically aroma that one might generously describe as “pine needles” but perhaps more accurately, it would be described as “soap”
Taste: This beer has a very light flavour when it first hits your tongue. It initially feels indistinct and aloof, but the taste lightly taps through the more you drink. It has quite a watery consistency but becomes sharper and sharper as you drink it. It takes on the “refreshing” moniker quite easily, but it soon becomes as refreshing as a lemon Fanta with several shots of lemon juice added. Those citrus “nots” soon become a discordant symphony which jars further with the idea that this is supposed to be a beer. An ice cold slap in the face of a beer, but there’s no real venom behind the hit.
Who this beer is for: Citrus lovers – people who like half a raw grapefruit for breakfast.
Pair with: A gammon steak Hawaii, or a bar of Imperial Leather
Ye Olde Pub Painter 