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Old Greg’s Barley Wine – ABV 9.5%

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This is the 2016 vintage of this excellent Barley Wine, bottle aged for 12 months, with dried fruit notes like raisins and a sweet complex booziness.

Look: It pours amber with a white head that quickly vanishes.

Aroma: Lots of dried fruit – prunes, dates and raisins in particular.

Taste: Sweet and rich with an undeniable boozy quality. If you leave it to age you can expect the complexity and richness of those fruit flavours to build and reduce any harshness the alcohol.

Food Pairings: The complex dried fruit flavours work really well with chocolate and nuts. Try it alongside a baked banana oozing with Nutella for a luscious dessert.

Verdict: Boozy, rich, sweet and delicious. We’ve been enjoying our small stash of the 2015 vintage over the past couple of months and this is a beer that will only get better with age.

Imperial Stout – ABV 8.9%

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Malts and coffee dominate but there’s a lovely background of freshly ground coffee beans and dark chocolate, plus sweet spiciness the Brambling Cross hops.

Look: Saltaire XS Imperial Stout pours dark brown in the glass, topped with a tan head.

Aroma: Rich roasts with dark chocolate and a hint of forest fruits.

Taste: It’s reminiscent of a hot Italian espresso made with freshly ground beans, rich and fruity – and there’s a subtle spiciness Brambling Cross hops added late in the boil.

Food Pairing: The roasted malts in this beer pair really nicely with chocolate. Try it with a nice thick slice of chocolate cake, and to add some creamy contrast a good dollop of whipped cream.

Verdict: The hops definitely take a backseat with this one; it’s definitely the malts that are driving this forward. And that’s a vehicle we’d be happy to ride in.

Nephilim IPA – ABV 7.4%

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Well-rounded with a crisp bitter finish, this IPA is brewed with 1.5kg of Citra, Mosaic, Equinox and Simcoe hops per brewers barrel – and is as heavenly as the name suggests.

Look: Pours a rich amber golden colour with a medium off-white head and good lacing.

Aroma:  Plenty of bright fruits including orange and lemon, subtle notes of passionfruit and crisp piney hops.

Taste: More citrus, with grapefruit joining the orange and lemon, and smooth fruit including melon and peach and some subtle piney hops and spice. Medium bodied, well-rounded and really nicely balanced with a lasting bitter finish. 

Verdict: A beer well worthy of the name (that means the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of man) – fruity and hoppy with great balance and finish. The Nephilim were around just before the time of the Great Flood, which is the approximate quantity of this beer we could happily drink.

Club of Slaughters Imperial Stout – ABV 8.8%

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Vegan-friendly Stout, with a Vegan-unfriendly name.

Wylam describe this beer as an “electro narcosis of peat smoke pitch, dark cocoa and oiled black cardamon, rib rattle into subtle bolt gusts of port wine and espresso pursued by a dark cherry red grape skin tartness”

That may be easy for them to say; but here’s what we think:

Look: Dark black, with a creamy brown head.

Aroma: Roasted malts, with hints of smoky spice.

Taste: Rich and complex, with smoke, coffee, chocolate, cinammon and cardamom.

Verdict: “It’s Stout Jim, but not as we know it”.

 

08/02 Imperial Stout – ABV 8.6%

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Rich stout with coffee and chocolate notes. This stout is based on London’s imperial stout recipes the 1850’s.

Old Fashioned – ABV 11.0%

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We’re big fans of the classic ‘Old Fashioned’ – a 19th Century cocktail traditionally made by muddling sugar with bitters, then adding Whiskey and a twist of citrus rind. This is our take, with a Barley Wine as the base beer and the classic zest to serve. It’s been in barrels for 12 months, picking up a well-rounded bourbon profile with some vanilla and caramel sweetness. Bitters optional!

 

I’m So Bored With The USA – ABV 7.4%

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A slightly different take on a modern, hazy IPA. Hopped to American IPA levels but brewed with entirely European hops.

Duet – ABV 7.0%

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Alpine’s original West Coast-style single IPA is made with Simcoe and Amarillo hops to strike a harmonious hop balance. Duet pours a hazy straw colour and is topped with bright white beer foam. It offers a blast of resinous aromatics with notes of evergreen pine, orange zest, and hints of cedar. Big hoppy flavours mingle with geranial notes, while hints of citrus fruit and an overall lingering piney quality lend a touch of complexity to an otherwise simple and delicious IPA.

Hepcat Hepcat – ABV 7.5%

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Hepcat Hepcat is a beer to celebrate our 400th brew!

Our most popular session beer, brewed (almost) twice as strong. Twice the malt, twice the hops, twice the Hepcat.

Baltic Porter – ABV 8.4%

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For this porter a cold-fermenting lager yeast with a clean, subtle flavour profile was used to allow the stewed and roasted malts to shine (all 10 of them no less). Toffee and caramel to start, leading into lightly spicy, hazelnut coffee and rich dark chocolate.

Brewed in collaboration with YellowBelly Beer.