Matthew's Journal

After pizza, I popped in to the beer festival (it's usually quieter earlier in the week, and there's a broader beer range); I bumped into some choir people so hung out with them, and have a few beers. Mostly for my own reference, I wanted to jot down what I had before I forget.

I thought dark beers were the way to go, since I really like dark beer and it's quite hard to find in pubs (where everything's light and hoppy it seems); these were all 1/2 pints.

1. Double Stout (Fellows; 7.4%). Picked by walking up to a bar and finding something dark; a pretty good stout
   
2. Port O'Call (Bank Top; 5%). Supposedly had vintage port added to the cask, but I couldn't detect the slightest hint of it, which is a shame.
   
3. Broken Dream (Siren; 6.7%). "Breakfast stout" the tasting notes say, which I found inherently amusing. Still, this was a really good slightly burned-tasting stout. Recommended
   
4. Imperial Stout (Adnams; 12%). Only a 1/3 of this one! A special for the festival, aged in Spirit of Broadside barrels and done as a collaboration with Six Degrees North of Aberdeen. Beer this strong is really hard to get right, but Adnams nailed it here - plenty of dark flavours and bitterness to balance the alcohol. Drink slowly, and savour!
   
5. Casual (Abstract Jungle; 4.6%). Was perhaps always going to taste ordinary after the Imperial Stout, this was pleasant enough but unremarkable.
   

Other beers I had a taste of and seemed worth remembering are the rum-cask cider (tasty, dangerous) and Liquid Mistress (Siren; 5.8%) which was a seriously interesting, hoppy red IPA.