Turning to page 307 of the 'Year of Social Media Beery Things' diary, I see that today is International Stout Day.

(incidentally, is this going to continue until every style has a fan-day of its own? If so, I'm looking forward to International Gose Day, celebrated by all its fans in a telephone box somewhere in Leipzig).

Now, I'm not one to buy into the hype of these 'events'. But I thought I ought to show willing.

So, here's the Reluctant Scooper Essential Guide to Stout. And Porter. Of course.

Porter - See STOUT

Porter, Fellowship & Ticket - See ZYTHOPHILE

Porter, Hoppy - see BLACK IPA  /CASCADIAN DARK / BLACK INDIAN ALE

Porter, Market - see 9 Stoney Street, Borough, London, SE1 9AA

Stout - see PORTER

Porter, Stout - See STOUT PORTER

Stout, Breakfast - see MIKKEL BORG BJERSØ

Stout, Dry - Don't see GUINNESS

Stout, Imperial - see ZYTHOPHILE AGAIN

Stoute, Michael - see SHERGAR

Stout, Milk - see CONDENSATION OF GALACTOSE AND GLUCOSE

Stout, Oatmeal - see READY BREK

Stout, Oyster - see MICHAEL JACKSON

Guinness - See NITROGENATED STOOL WATER


I'll be cracking open a bottle or two of Harvey's Imperial Extra Double Stout later on. Rude not to, etc... >

So, Williams Brothers Brewing have two entries in the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt. You know the score, there, surely; sixteen beers new the store are pitted against each other with two 'winners' given a six-month listing starting just before Christmas. To be honest, I'm not too fussed about Caesar Augustus, their lager/IPA hybrid; I'd prefer it to be one or the other. Let me tell you, then, about their Profanity Stout.

It actually makes you say ****.

An aroma that's a heady mix of pith, milky chocolate and Parma Violets? **** yeah!

Flavours that dance between singed liquorice, cold coffee and sticky citrics? **** me!

No alcohol burn, no ruined toast notes. Just an honest-to-goodness ******* great beer.

This was developed by two students, Peter and Craig, from the world-renowned brewing couse at Heriot Watt University. Well, **** me, you've well and truely graduated with full ******* honours, lads.

As I almost said in the title, it's a fitting bombard of a beer. Or something like that.

And with my cap firmly doffed in the direction of the Fawlty Towers opening titles, I give you what Williams Brothers may have called the beer if they wanted to play with anagrams. And didn't actually have to sell the stuff on Sainsbury's shelves.

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 This month's host of The Session, The Beer Babe, has challenged us all to blog on this topic:

"Seek out a new brewery and think about ways in which they could be welcomed into the existing beer community. How does their beer compare to the craft beer scene in your area? Are they doing anything in a new/exciting way? What advice, as a beer consumer, would you give to these new breweries?"

A new brewery? Hmmmmm. Where to look?

My own doorstep is the obvious place.

Derbyshire is a cradle of microbrewing in the UK. We have some time-served brewpubs (John Thompson, Brunswick), some up-and-coming micros (Spire, Ashover, Amber). The occasional small-guy-done-good (Thornbridge). And I don't know if it's the water, an innate desire or our love for good ale but the county just keeps on inspiring brewers.

We have a million people here, most in the city of Derby with the rest spread over the county of a  thousand square miles. Mind you, they are chicken-feed statistics compared to every United State. Yet this year we've seen four microbrewers open up, giving us thirty working brewpubs and brewers. And today I've been enjoying the beers from one of the newest on the block.

Raw Brewery have been in business for just over three months. But they're already making a great impression on the local beer scene and beyond. From their place in Staveley - already home to Townes and Spire breweries - they're knocking out beers that are punching way above their weight.  It's only today that I managed to drink their beers and, boy, was it worth it. Grey Goose IPA bucks the trend of senseless over-hopping and settles for deep fruit, married with solid malt. The blindsider was Dark Peak Stout; one of those beers that you fall in love with because of its commensurate restraint.  Just licorice enough, just ashen enough, just dark-chocolate-with-fruity-berry-notes enough.

Enough for Dark Peak to win the overall silver medal at the Peterborough Beer Festival, one of the largest cask festivals in the UK. And it was best beer in the New Brewery category too. Grey Goose was second in that category. Not bad for a newbie brewer :-)

So, to answer Carla's call:

- how could they be welcomed? No introduction required; already established as a regular beer in key pubs through North Derbyshire. And joining the Derbyshire Brewers Collective shows their dedication to collaboration.

- How do they compare? Very well. Derbyshire brewers set the bar high and Raw are another startup who don't flop beneath it.

- New and exciting? To be honest, what Raw do is not new. And that's what makes it exciting. Old skool IPA and stout, tasty and restrained, full of body and full of flavour. No bells and whistles or mad bastard hops. Just really drinkable beer. Isn't that why we pick the glass up in the first place?

-What advice can I give? Keep on keeping on. Few brewers hit the ground running in this fashion.

For those lucky people within reach of Derby, five Raw beers are on sale at the Smithfield as part of their festival. Although knowing the crowd they get, who drink like bastards, there may not be too much left by the time you reads this. Sorry. At least I shared the gen :-)

To find out more about Raw Brewery, check out their website, Facebook and Twitter pages >

Some say that it tastes of silken cream that's enjoyed an intimate relationship with washy coffee and sweet chocolate.

Some say that its deep-tan-turning-black body and rocky beige head belie the smoked salt speckled in the finish.

All I know is, it's not Thornbridge St.Petersburg... but its Caledonian cousin.

Riptide sweeps majestically across the palate; seemingly thinnish and under-geared but ultimately tasty and satisfying. >

Time for another Pete Slosberg-inspired tasting. Take a caramel centered chocolate and pair with a chocolate stout. Is the result double the fun or twice as nasty?


Let's start with the beer - Young's Double Chocolate Stout . It certainly had good carbonation with an audible effervescence, its rocky head soon settling to an off-cream band.

There's obvious chocolate on the nose, but it's a curious dusty drinking chocolate. No, scrub that - it's liker a creamy hot chocolate gone cold. There's a lick of sweet chocolate too, like a syrup shot. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that it uses chocolate essence as a flavouring.

With little roast up front, the sweet chocolate taste is slightly cloying on the palate. Perhaps a chunk of chocolate would change things? I'd struggled to find anything vaguely artisanal so I'd settled for Cadbury's Dairy Milk with Caramel. It was surprisingly good - bit on the cold side but the caramel filling was soft and deep flavoured. The next slurp of beer was bitterer - the darker dry chocolate flavour now placed in sharp relief to the sustained sweetness of the caramel.

Then it all went a bit strange.... the chocolate got tastier, the beer weaker. The washy dark chocolate from the beer enhanced the caramel filling of the Dairy Milk, but with each sip the beer became thinner in flavour and higher in bitterness, any roasted notes having deserted.

I expected more from the beer; instead of interesting chocolate bolstered by coffee and roasted malts, I got flavours that started heavy-handed and ended up bitter and washy. I found it disconcerting to read the label's assertion that the beer was 'best served chilled'. To me, for a dark beer, that's tantamount to an admission that there's little flavour in there to be savoured in the first place.

Perhaps another beer would make a different impression. I had a bottle of Marble Chocolate knocking around; not strictly speaking a stout but it seemed robust enough for this tasting. And it looked good from the off, a nearly black body with a dappled cream head, clear roast on the nose alongside a clean creamy chocolate flavour. A far better beer than Youngs, so I'd high hopes for the pairing effect.

Well, the chocolate tasted fantastic, that first merging of the beer's roasty notes with this surprisingly tasty caramel. And then... the next mouthful of beer was quite bitter, as if my taste buds had given up on sensing sweetness. More chocolate was fine, more beer was gross - far too bitter, no sense of roasted malt, harsh bittering off-coffee flavours.

Overall, not a very successful pairing. Perhaps the thick milk chocolate swamped the beers, perhaps the beers just didn't have strong enough roast characteristics to cope. If anyone knows how I can get hold of Cocoa Pete's Caramel Knowledge in the UK (or, indeed, any of the Cocoa Pete range) then do let me know as I'd love to try the pairing again with what is obviously a far more robust chocolate. In the meantime, I may have to find a full-blooded stout and a darker caramel bar (??) and try this again sometime soon.
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Greenwich brewers Meantime have made a name for themselves with a range of award-winning bottled beers. As they brew a coffee beer, a chocolate beer and stouts/porters offering both flavours, they may be able to offer me all I'm looking for. But can they deliver?




First off was London Stout. Knowing this is brewed without roasted malts, I was expecting a smooth beer but this was silken to the point of offering no resistance. And little in the way of flavour, too. A little washy vanilla, a drop or three of americano. Perhaps I shouldn't have followed the Meantime tasting notes and chilled the beer as the subtlety felt frozen out of it. In fairness, there was some cocoa powder itching around the edges towards the end, but it developed too late for my liking. By no means a bad bottle but underwhelming.

Could the chocolate beer excite me more? Now, I've tried this before and, frankly, found it to be a superb after-dinner beer. This bottle poured with a thick head like a cappuchino gone wrong. Certainly a sweet aroma - my wife thought it too banana-esque - whereas I thought more of hot chocolate bubbling on the stove, on the point of curdling. The flavour had two chocolates fighting against each other, one sweet and creamy - almost cloying - alongside a dusky darker tang (cooking chocolate?) like a bar only recently snapped.

On the palate, those chocolate flavours are tempered by a bittering coffee shot. Consistant carbonation means that a swift flick of the wrist reactivates the head into a slowly disappearing pillow of coffee froth. This could be a car-crash, but Meantime have produced a bitter-cream beer that deserves the awards and shouldn't be denigrated as a novelty flavoured ale.

The London Porter is a longtime favourite of mine, so it would be rude not to crack open a bottle. And a fine looking bottle it is, too; champagne bottled with cork closure. And it's chock full of malts, coffee crema tussling with spent charcoal and brooding dark chocolate. That first sip - OK, first gulp - brings bitter chocolate and an assured hop astringency. There's some slight caramel before the sweeping coffee and chocolate crescendo. Damn, I love this beer.

I tried the Coffee Porter on cask recently and liked it. I rated the same beer bottled (then just called Coffee) and wasn't too impressed. Time to try the bottle again, then; now billed as Coffee Porter and rejigged with - I think - less coffee than before. Well, there's certainly a better balance, with pronounced coffee notes on the nose and more deep-set roasted chocolate flavours than before. The coffee cushion is sat on by a fat chocolate arse, an indentation of itching beans remains in the mouth. I'm impressed by this - clearly the recipe has changed and Meantime have achieved a balance that's enviable where these flavours are involved.

I'm impressed overall by these Meantime beers. London Porter has always been a fave beer and was an enjoyable glug. The Chocolate beer was still as good as I remembered it and one that I'd gladly buy in for Christmas and try to bring beer-sceptics I know over to the dark malty side. And the Coffee Porter was a surprise - a vast improvement on the previous bottled version and even better than the cask version. Only the London Stout disappointed - I may have to give it another go.

All this beer gave me an appetite for chocolate, so I raided the war chest for some single origin bars. Thorntons are currently selling a selection so I gave them a go.

Papua New Guinea is a 35% solids milk chocolate described as 'exotic and aromatic'. Very vanilla with a little lemon. Fairly good for a milk chocolate but could be cloying in any more than a sampler bar.

Ecuador edges to 40% solids and is billed as 'fruity and floral'. Sounds like a good golden ale! This bar offered more caramel and quite a keen citric vein. A bit nondescript - still rich but no killer flavour for me.

Mexico sees the step up to dark chocolate with 66% solids. This was described as 'fruity and herbal'; I got oranges, lemons again, all mixed in a surprisingly creamy finish. Just a hint of licorice on the nose.

Sao Tome steps up the solids to 70% in a 'fruity and bittersweet' bar. I like the bitterness here, still an underlying fruit feel but the thicker chocolate feel starts to stick to you teeth. The feel gets softer in the mouth and ends up being a pleasingly well balanced chocolate that I could have more of.

Last bar is Tanzania, 75% solids described as 'bitter and intense'. Well, I demand a recount. Decent aroma, strong chocolate with a little vanilla. The astringent taste is there, but it needs working round your mouth to release it at the end of a rather oily palate.

Interesting to have these chocs, but to be honest they all felt a little samey. Tanzania's bitter edge was as average as Papua New Guinea's vanillaness. I enjoyed yomping through the range but wish one of them had been knockout. As it is, I feel like I have a little bit of chocolate sick in my tummy.

Time for bed. (Burp).

Thanks to beermerchants for the beers. All photos (c) Meantime Brewing.

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I expect several a number of highlights at a Tamworth beer festival. Church End oddities. One outstanding beer from a brewery I'd never heard of. A crap half of something blandly bitter at the Albert on the way home. But I wasn't expecting a selection of bottled beers from a new brewer. Matt McGivern has been described as a 'commercial homebrewer' who's knocking out up to twenty gallons a day from a converted outhouse at his parent's house. He won gold at Tamworth with his Festiv-Ale. How would his bottles measure up?


I bought three different bottles back from Tamworth. Wrexham's Matt McGivern is producing around a dozen different brews but I bought a trio of dark stuff; a stout, a porter and Matthew's Mild. The stout was fairly well hopped, albeit a little slight around the edges. I'm keener on a toasty, roastier malt and this pulled back from being a pouty stout to more of a thin-lipped wonder.

The porter, too, was rather subdued. Some ashen notes wafted around but again there was a particular lack of body. By no means unpleasant - competent, certainly. Drinkable, absolutely. My porter of choice? Unlikely.

So, having been underwhelmed by beers from two of my favourite styles, would the mild be more challenging? Well, McGivern seems to be proud of this; it's the only beer to carry his name. And what a beer it was. Here's the burnt fruits missing from the other two, bits-in-the-bottom-of-the-jam-pan with any over-intensity collapsed by a smooooth silkyness in the finish. I'm no brewer, but I get the feeling that any cheeky monkey can madly hop an IPA or over-smoke a stout. But to extract a balanced sweetness in an ale under four percent is, to me, a genius touch.

Matt is looking to continue supplying local pubs whilst looking for one of his own as an outlet for his cask works. When he does, I'll be an eager queuer at the bar for beers of this quality. You may struggle to find these beers outside of North Wales but if you do stumble across them, buy more than you think you need. Your friends will be grateful!
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On one of his recent trips to the Lake District, a friend of mine brought me back a bottle of Hawkshead beer from the brewery shop. Not any old beer, mind; their famed Damson Stout, promising to offer oatmeal laced with Westmorland damsons. With the weather turning a chill today, I was eager to crack open a dark beer and this seemed to fit the bill perfectly

The bottle poured a ruddy mahogany and gave an immediate whiff of dusty fruit. A scant mocha head subsided to leave a fading beige lacing down the glass. Holding up to the nose, there was a gently aggressive aroma - some sharp souring fruit mellowed by a dry woody note.

And, what a flavour. An assured natural sourness, whilst those oats bring a substantial dry feel to the back of the throat as those damsons vie for attention. The fruit is almost rotting on your lips, a tang that rivals some of the established Belgian fruit beers.

With a drying finish coated in a damson varnish, this was a superb beer. This makes one of my favourite beers, Burton Bridge Damson Porter, seem tame by comparison. My only regret is that I haven't sampled it on cask - if you get the chance, let me know how it was. I won't be too jealous. Honest.

(Thanks to Cycling John for the bottle)
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