Tag Archive for: Box Featured

Smokin Bees Whisky Honey Smoked Porter – ABV 10%

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smokin bees

Billed modestly as a classic porter with smoky overtones of a single malt whiskey, Smokin’ Bees has a honey sweetness and floral hints to a roast malt backdrop.

Look: Black pour with brown head.

Aroma: Sugary sweet with roasted malts. You can really sense the 100kg of wild flower honey added at the end of the boil, which gives it a beautiful sweetness and floral notes.

Taste: More sweet honey and toffee, plus smoked malts and some spicey accents

Food Pairing: We’d never suggest drinking beer this strong for breakfast, yet we can’t help thinking about pairing it with pancakes, smoked bacon and maple syrup.

Verdict: Delicious heavy sweet beer with artwork of bees smoking cigarettes by Nomad Clan. Part of Northern Monk’s Patrons project – it’s like no imperial porter you’ve tasted before.

Blacklight Banana Imperial Stout – ABV 9.2%

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This collaboration between Siren and Garage Project is a seriously-smooth drinking imperial stout with aromas of banana and chocolate.

Look: Dark black with a tan head.

Aroma: Banana and chocolate with rich dark molasses.

Taste: A creamy mouthfeel and flavours of malt, banana and treacle combine to give a slightly burnt bitterness to balance out the sweetness.

Food pairing: A great beer for drinking with desserts. Try pairing it with the burnt, creaminess of a creme caramel.

Verdict: Blacklight Banana was brewed as part of the 2016 Rainbow Project. We just wish Siren had brewed more of it.

Pompelmocello IPA – ABV 6.0%

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The team at Siren say their objective with Pompelmocello was to make a beer as grapefruit tasting as possible. We think they nailed it; beers just don’t come more citrusy than this.

Aroma: Sharp, nonintoxicating sweet and naturally bursting with citrus

Taste: It delivers on extremes of sour and sharp, yet is so drinkable you could almost overlook the alcohol content and swap it out for a morning breakfast juice.

Verdict: Interested in sour beers but don’t know where to start? Start here.

Food Pairing: The sharp, sour flavours go perfectly with salty fried food. Drink it with a bag of good quality pork scratchings or crisps.

Hercules Hold Scotch Ale – ABV 8.5%

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Hercules took its Hold on us at first sip: it’s sweet and sharp with Belgian malts and Candi sugars aged in oak barrels for three months.

Aroma: Dried fruit resting on a malty backbone

Taste: The beer has had a couple of doses of Brett in the brewing (farmhouse yeast, and in a beer blended in before the barrel ageing), so it has some sweet and sharp flavours you wouldn’t normally expect a Scotch Ale.

Verdict: We’ve seen Hercules Hold referred to variously as a Scotch or Belgian ale, a confusion that must surely be the natural result of a really unique beer. But no matter what you call it, it’s is a treat.

Food Pairing: Try it with blue cheese for a salty-sweet flavour combo.

Bastard Brag Black IPA – ABV 7.2%

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Taking its name a version of poker, this light-bodied Black IPA is drinkable and balanced with roasted dark malts and citrusy Simcoe and Centennial hops.

Look: Clear and dark with nice amount of lacing with a creamy beige head.

Aroma: Roasted malt well balanced with light citrus interludes

Taste: Malt, charcoal, grapefruit and pine, combined well in an easy drinking beer with a nice dry finish.

Food Pairing: This beer works well with smoky, spicy flavours. Try it with Mexican food, or a paella made with chorizo.

Verdict: Bastard Brag’s full back story includes being initially brewed as batch 333, inspired by the version of poker favoured at the By The Horns brewery – in which three 3’s is the strongest hand – and this is a full house of an IPA.

Brave New World IPA – ABV 7.0%

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This is everything we love in a good IPA; lots of pithy grapefruit and pine on the nose, followed by big bittersweetness balanced out with tropical fruit flavour and and that classic pine-resin note, finished off with a long hit of pine bitterness.

Mexicake Imperial Stout – ABV 11%

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When it came time to brewing something big and dark, Tempest had just one thing on their mind: cake.

A beer that tasted like a delicious, delectable chocolate cake… how about a Mexican chocolate cake?

Imagine taking a rich, boozy imperial stout, and then infusing it with fresh vanilla beans, high-quality cocoa, Ceylon cinnamon, Chipotle chillies, and Mulato chillies.

Blend it all together, and what you get is a complex and delicious beer with a rich, full mouthfeel, a touch of sweetness the vanilla, ground spice aroma the cinnamon, a touch of fruitiness the Mulato, and a little heat and smoke in the finish the Chipotle.

Return to Madness Imperial IPA – ABV 11%

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Terrific for sipping on the sofa – just be careful when you stand up again. Fruity esters, tropical hops and yeast forces join for a no-holds-barred IPA.

Look: It is thick pouring with a hazy golden colour and a long lasting head.

Aroma: Tropical fruit, pine resin and sweet yeastiness combine in a complex dance  – it’s amazingly easy-going for an 11 percenter. Now that’s madness.

Taste: Sweet, chewy and boozy with fruity esters the yeast, you get a massive hop hit of Aramillo, Vic’s Secret, Centennial and Columbus.

Food pairing: The sweet and heavily hopped flavour is a good match for the salty tang of strong cheese. Try it with a mature cheddar sourdough toastie.

Schwartzwalder Kirschtorte – ABV 7.2%

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German for Black Forest Gateau, this brown-black beer is lighter bodied than a traditional stout or porter but has intoxicating cherry and chocolate notes.

Aroma: Swirl it around in the glass to release the heavenly aromas of cherry, forest fruits and dark chocolate.

Taste: Instead of being over-sweet, the cherry sourness is carefully balanced with roasted malt and subtle notes of chocolate, giving an easy drinking beer. A dry, slightly bitter finish complements the aromas of fruit, to leave you wanting more.

Food Pairing: This beer is the perfect accompaniment to cold game pie – or for the full Schwartzwalder Kirschtorte experience try it with few squares of good quality dark chocolate.

Syd Strongs Black IPA – ABV 7.1%

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Originally a collab with Brewdog, this full-bodied Black IPA hits hard with the spiciness of rye plus citrus pine notes, but manages to keep an almost porter-like smoothness.

Look: This full-bodied Black IPA pours with a thick tan head.

Aroma: Roasted malt combined with citrus and pine the hops.

Taste: It has the smooth mouthfeel of a porter, but with lots of spiciness the rye. Spice eventually gives way to a nice velvety finish and thirst-quenching bitterness the hops.

Verdict: Totally delicious and very moreish – a fitting memorial to Syd Strongs, a long-gone hairdresser’s on Camden High Street.