Twelve beers of Christmas #11: Thornbridge Bracia

Yes, I know it's almost the first day of spring. I enjoyed a bottle or three of Thornbridge's finest over the festive break but never quite got around to writing about it. Too busy drinking the stuff, you see. So, time to dig out the old notes and then crack open another bottle to see if the rapture still holds fast...

You know how you never forget your first time? My first taste of Bracia was at the brewery in November 2008, the impossible smoothness of the beer being as impressive as the brewers' enthusiasm for it. Kelly Ryan gave me a bottle to take away which I intended to have over Christmas, but it seemed too good to drink so soon. Fortunatley, they were able to slap labels onto a production batch in time and so I was able to pick up a dozen bottles direct from the brewery.

This beer is a Thornbridge labour of love steeped in history. Its inspiration lies in an alterstone inscription found at another Derbyshire country house, Haddon Hall; Bracia possibly referring to a honey-sweetened high-alcohol beverage drank by the occupying Romans. That connection inspired Italian head brewer, Stefano Cossi, to develop a rich beer infused with chestnut honey sourced from the foothills of north-east Italy.

Into the glass, Bracia bursts forth with molasses and creamy coffee. An initially sticky beige head came unglued into a frogspawn of stubborn bubbles above a burnished brown body. And onto the nose, in waves, came honey like no other. Not sickly sweet, not funky fresh comb, just wafts of that chestnutty tang.

A first sip revealed softer sensations, the chestnut flavoutr carried sharper on the underpeel feel of a waning oraange, all tempered by easy honey rewarming on the palate. Fifteen minutes later - yes, I can actually leave a beer this long - rewards are reaped as the crema topping is capable of being whipped up again and flavours of damp honeycomb and milky chocolate come through. Like a Crunchie dipped in cold coffee, the beer left some lovely cream on the lips with a prickle of sweetness at the end and enveloping nuttiness on the way down.

After half and hour, flavours even out to a coffe-laced sorbet with honeycomb flakes, a soft and frothy praline ebb and an assured sweetness that melts away in the mouth.

So far, so orgasmic. It would have been plain rude of me not to sample some alongside chocolate, so I dug out some single origin Amedei samplers that I treated myself to for my birthday. The Venezuelan had a superb freshly sweet aroma with notable clear honey traces that complemented the Bracia well. The Ecuadorian offered pronounced powdery cocoa, accentuating the nuttiness of the beer.

What an epic beer. There was virtuoso honey, subtleties of nuts and coffee revelling in a fantasia of flavours. It had taken me an hour to enjoy the bottle; the next one was polished off within thirty minutes but by then I knew the tune. Bracia offered a bittersweet symphony; I look forward to the same notes (albeit not neccessarily in the same order) when I try another bottle in a few months time.