Peanut Butter Milk Stout (5.3%) - Belching Beaver Brewery, California, USA

With all the light beers I've been on recently it was time for a change, and to call this brew something a bit different would be a whopping understatement. 

It poured totally jet black with a substantial dark brown head that fizzled down by the time I could snap it, so awe-struck was I by the beauty of it.

The aroma was unlike anything I've known before from a beer. Rich chocolate and nutty aromas are belched out of the can in abundance with no room for ambiguity: chocolate fudge cake, brownie and peanut butter cups may as well be the indulgences lying at the bottom of your glass.

The flavour is everything the aromas promise to deliver: full-bodied, rich and packed with sweet, smooth, creamy chocolate and dark roasted peanuts which linger on for you to enjoy after every swig.

While it's not your typical stout (not that it aims to be), it's no less drinkable for its novel ingredients and character. In fact, despite its unabashedly in-your-face flavours, it's skilfully rounded and very easy-drinking. It must be, having won seven awards in the last four years. 

Thick and sweet, this is an indulgent dessert of a beer that will please those with a sweet tooth, fans of beavers, fans of dark beers, and fans of beer. It can easily be summed up in two words: dam good. 

Rating ★★★★★★★★✰✰

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The brewery
Website here

Facebook page here

Where to buy
£4.15 on The Beer Hawk

Something similar
Bateman's Hazelnut Brownie

Hazelnut Brownie (6.3%) - Batemans Brewery, Lincolnshire, England

I might have something approaching an oversupply of beers from my new Spanish region of Galicia developing, but since Christmas I've had something different put aside for a special occasion. That something different was a unique English ale by Batemans Brewery that my girlfriend had bestowed on me, and that special occasion was Friday.

The label on Hazelnut Brownie, as with the other beers in Batemans' Sovereign range, has undergone a bit of a rebranding with a contemporary typographic look in favour of the more homely, rustic appearance that it used to sport on its beer pumps. Batemans is keen to highlight its long heritage, though, with its big wax stamp and the year it was founded, 1874, proudly displayed on the front. 

Lincolnshire within England

No sooner is the cap cracked off than the beer's lusciously fragrant aroma starts permeating the space around you without even needing to edge your nose closer to it. I shoved my nose down the bottle neck for a bigger hit anyway, sending my brain into a chocolatey frenzy before the stuff had even left the bottle. Once it had been given a swill around my glass, rich, creamy aromas of chocolate and sweet malts were diffusing apace. It was clear at this point that this would be no subtle interpretation of a hazelnut brownie.

It pours a gorgeous dark mahogany, with a generous coffee-coloured head that gathers and dissipates cleanly. If you've noticed that this is the only blog post of mine where that hasn't been captured in a photo then you'd be right: my chocolate-scrambled brain forced me to dive in straight away before I could.

Soon after doing so my cakehole was filled with the most ridiculously uncanny resemblance to a brownie I'd ever sampled from a beer glass. Sweet chocolate was there in abundance along with a touch of cinnamon spice and a distinct hazelnut finish that was too good to believe it could be true until I went back for more.

While it wouldn't hurt for the body to be a bit fuller, it's certainly as rich and decadent in flavour as it could be and manages to impart a creaminess, I assume from the use of lactose, that could have you believe you'd had it served up with custard, warmed up by the 6.3% ABV.

Quirky, dessert inspired beers are nothing new, but what sets Hazelnut Brownie apart from so many others I've tried is that you don't need to use your imagination to convert those dark roasted malts and reinterpret them as chocolate; this one does all the work for you. Whether this sensation has been achieved solely with the creative use of malt, hops, chocolate and cinnamon I can't say for sure, but who cares? It tastes like what you wanted it to when you picked it up off the shop shelf.

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 5/5

Flavour 5/5

Mouthfeel 3/5

Overall 8.5/10

Head here for Batemans' website  

Head here for a review of Batemans' English B Bock

Demo Neghro Extra Stout (6.5%) - Cervexa Menduiña, Galicia, Spain

As we enter April and springtime makes a leisurely and largely hesitant return to Lugo, Spain, I realise seven months into my residency here that I imported my beer-hoarding tendencies with me, having developed a sizeable collection and now not knowing where most of it even came from.

Fancying something to match the current climate, I picked this out. Whereas in this part of the world many of the artisan beer offerings have been established relatively recently, to my surprise it turned out that Menduiña is no newcomer to the craft beer scene. They've been squirting out barrels of cervexa since 2008, which by modern standards practically makes them craft beer veterans.

Hailing from Pontevedra, a coastal town in the region of Galicia, the brewery's aim is to "reclaim a part of the lost culture of our ancestors" by reviving what the ancient dwellers of these lands would have drunk without fear of being labelled barbarians before those poncey wino Romans came along. I very much doubt they would have been drinking 6.5% stout, but this is where the brewery's innovation comes into play.

Pictured on the matt, textured label is the very "Black Devil" that inspires the beer's Galician name, grimacing sardonically over a bottle of the good stuff. Interestingly the pagan Celts knew no Devil before the pesky Romans arrived, so this mischievous character seems to be one influence they were happy to keep. 

The beer pours an luscious jet black with a stunning cushion of coffee-coloured head that leaves a wonderful lacing down the glass. 

On the nose it's impressively fragrant for a stout with aromas of dark chocolate, coffee and a sweetness from the added Galician honey coming through immediately. The smell is so moreish in its own right, in fact, that I almost couldn't bring myself to tear my schnoz away from it to go in for a sip.

But of course I did, and the few glugs I ingested were a silky smooth, full-bodied delight. It has qualities of smoky, woody, dark roasted malts and some herbal hoppy notes that add balance with a bitterness, ending in a dry, nutty finish. Owing to the high ABV, a mellow alcoholic warmth is ever so slightly present.

On the brewery's recommendation I paired this with a few cubes of chocolate negro. This particular chocolate was on the lower end of the bitterness scale at 55% cocoa, and so while the bitterness of the chocolate complimented the roasted characteristics of the beer, at the same time they offset each other to leave the sweeter malty flavours, as well as the more herbal of the hoppy flavours to surface. Whichever way you have it, this is a devilishly good brew.

I have another offering from this brewery lurking in my special, top-secret beer place, so you'll be seeing more from me on them in the near future.

Spanish National Beer Championship 
2015 Bronze award winner

Appearance 5/5

Aroma 5/5

Flavour 4/5

Mouthfeel 4/5

Overall rating 9/10

Menduiña's website: http://www.menduina.eu/

Moura (5.5%) - Cervexa Artesá Aloumiña, Galicia, Spain

During a festival called San Froilán when the good inhabitants of Lugo in Spain go potty for octopus in their thousands over two weeks of October, I was pleased to see a stall belonging to Aloumiña brewery which showcased the three beers in their range, and tried their bitter-style tosta directly from the cask out of a plastic cup. Relieved to get some top-fermented goodness down me, I scraped together whatever euros I had on me and put a bottle away for a rainy day, of which there's no shortage here.

Wondering if I might ever again encounter a beer in Lugo that deviated from the ordinary selection on draught, in a dark corner of a bar one cold and stormy night (we'll say for dramatic effect) I saw one lone customer with a bottle of an Aloumiña beer in his possession, the only indication of this beer's availability behind the bar. I made a curious enquiry and out came a bottle of their blonde beer Loura from the shelf of a hidden fridge, an exbeerience repeatable in many other bars in town. Having opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me I felt like I now belonged to some elite club, one of the select few equipped with the knowledge to access a diverse range of hard-to-get, small-batch craft brews. The secret code phrase was now mine: "What else have you got?" 

What I'd saved for a rainy day and was still yet to sample was the darkest in their range, Moura. In a tremendous twist of fate it wasn't raining today, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. 

The label boasts the use of quality ingredients even down to the local water (what better use for it?) and adding to the beer's local character all the blurb is in the Galician language. Proudly proclaiming itself a "top-fermented, ale-style" unfiltered, unpasteurised and bottle-conditioned "living" beer, this couldn't be more different from the dead, mass-produced beer more commonly enjoyed here.

As if that wasn't enough, Moura pours the deepest, darkest chestnut brown a beer could be, with a coffee-coloured head that dissipates slowly to leave the odd small patch of lacing.

The aroma is of a smoky, woody quality with distinct hints of roasted chestnuts (another thing Galicians are particularly fond of in the winter months) and fainter hints of licorice. After a glug your mouth is awash with a medium-bodied mouthful of roasted and caramel malts that develop into a delightful dry, toasted, nutty finish. 

It becomes clear that what we have here is a 21st century all-Galician porter, a well-established beer style that Aloumiña have picked up and made their own with bags of character that call to mind a Galician winter's day. This is a bittersweet, nutty, Mourish delight.

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 4/5

Flavour 4.5/5

Mouthfeel 4/5

Overall rating 8/10

Link to Aloumiña's Facebook page.

Link to my ramblings on their blonde beer Loura.

Gordon Xmas (8.8%) - John Martin Brewery, Brabant Province, Belgium

Since discovering how easily accessible continental Europe is by car early last year, it's been difficult to stay away, especially knowing there's a whole other world of beer just a few hours' drive away. Having the possibility of loading up the back of the car is an added bonus, but this inevitably leads to a beery backlog that takes time to clear. That's partly why two weeks into January I'm still drinking Christmas beers and will be for some time to come.

I was surprised to find out that this Belgian brewery was founded by an Englishman, John Martin (although the clue is in the name, you could say) and has remained a family-run business since 1909, now in the hands of grandson Anthony. Gordon Xmas was created in the 1930's as the very first purpose-brewed seasonal Christmas beer, starting what would become a beery tradition we should all be grateful for. To make things even more interesting, the Gordon range is named after an ancient Scottish clan, making this a Scottish-inspired, English-brewed, Belgium-based ale (which I purchased in France).

I picked up this festive-looking bottle in a Calais bottle shop and must confess that I'd hesitated at the sight of the label, which looks like a 1970's movie poster, but in the spirit of Christmas and because I had a few euros of pocket money left to spend, I scooped it into my basket anyway. 

The beer pours a lovely dark amber turning to a ruby red under certain light, with a tan head that holds its own.

As soon as the snowy cap comes off, a pungent, rich caramel aroma shoots out. More of the caramels are present once poured into the glass, with hints of candied fruit that create a flavour similar to a fruitcake, accompanied by a dusty, floral soapiness.

The intensity of flavour exceeds expectations, with sickly sweet caramel malt and sweet, candied fruits coating the palate, followed by the minutest hint of a nutty finish and a warming alcohol burn. 

The medium carbonation coupled with the intensity made it overwhelming to begin with, which I found eased the flatter it became (yes, that's how long I spent on it). Even so, with nothing to cut through the bold, malty flavours, it's slightly too cloying for my liking.

Gordon Xmas is full-bodied, intense, rich and indulgent making it a great choice at Christmas. However, being in need of some balance I would steer clear of rich and indulgent foods while you're supping it.

Appearance 4.5/5

Aroma 2.5/5

Flavour 3/5

Mouthfeel 2/5

Overall Rating 6/10

Brewery Information
Website: http://www.anthonymartin.be 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breweryjohnmartin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bendelcourt 

Blessed Thistle (4.5%) - Cairngorm Brewery Company, Highland, Scotland

One of the biggest problems with being so strongly inclined to fill my suitcase as much as possible with bottles of beer when returning from a holiday is of course the measly baggage allowance that simply wasn't decided with me in mind. This normally leads to impulsive additions to my beerhaul once I've passed security at the airport terminal, regardless of the suddenly inflated costs. That's what happened when I connected at Glasgow on a flight from Stornoway to Heathrow - with little else to keep me busy there I had dangerous amounts of time to kill in the beer section of the tourist shop, and kill it I did.

One of the beers I subsequently adopted was Blessed Thistle from the Scottish Highlands. Not exactly local to Glasgow, but a beer that used Scotland's national emblem as an ingredient, one I'd never tasted nor seen being brewed with before, filled me with too much excitement to let it pass me by.

On a 500ml bottle (the size I like) the label displays the Cairngorm brewery with the backdrop of a deep red sunset. And, of course, an enormous thistle. 

As promised on the label, it pours a gorgeous reddish-brown (turning redder or browner depending on the light) and has a good head that holds on its way down, leaving some good lacing behind.

The aroma is of floral gums, that soapy tasting sweet we all remember and love, with a roasted, malty undercurrent. There's an extra herbal quality in there that I’d never smelt the likes of before in a beer: surely the thistle at play. Adding a herbal tea character, it's very pleasant and works so very well.

The flavour introduces roasted, biscuity and nutty flavours that linger on. At the same time refreshing fruity and floral notes wash over the malty base leaving a subtle floral gums after taste. As the herbal seasoning comes through, the hints of ginger mentioned on the label make themselves known.

It has a medium body and a fairly dry finish which works well with the roasted, nutty flavours.

Presenting me with something unlike anything I'd tasted before, I was more than pleasantly surprised by Blessed Thistle. Even at an inflated airport tourist shop price, its complex yet balanced, different and drinkable nature with bags of Scottish character made it worth every penny, living up to its description of a "unique thistle beer". Next time, I'm bringing a bigger holdall.

  

Appearance 5/5

Aroma 4.5/5

Flavour 4.5/5

Mouthfeel 3/5

Overall rating 8.5/10

Brewery information

Website: http://www.cairngormbrewery.com/ 

Twitter: @cairngormbrew
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CairngormBrewery 

English Bay Pale Ale (5%) - Granville Island Brewing, Vancouver, Canada

English Bay, Vancouver. A charming part of the city with sea, sandy beaches, shiny skyscrapers and tree-covered, snow-capped mountains all in one view. For an English Bay, it's anything but English.

My girlfriend and I went on many walks there during our trip back in April, and if I could take a piece of it back to Blighty with me in the form of a beer then all the better (wrapping it up snugly for its ten-hour flight home, of course).

 

I grabbed this bottle at Granville Island Brewing itself, not far from English Bay. In a 341ml bottle (a measurement this beer-swilling Brit hadn’t come across before), the label features the brewery’s logo on it with their slogan “It’s good to be here”. I don’t know where they’re referring to, but if it’s anywhere in the general Vancouver area then I can’t help but agree.

The beer poured a darker amber than I’d expected from a pale ale, with shades of copper up against certain light. As the label suggests, the aroma is very much on the malty side of things with sweet caramel and toffee aromas coming through – “West Coast character” as they call it – and hints of treacle and chocolate. Hops provide some fruity berries and earthy characteristics. A decent waft of a very pleasant aroma on the whole and one I was very keen to dive into.

With an aroma that reminded me more of an English bitter, the flavour had some surprises in store. Mild as the label suggests, with caramels and some fruity woodland berries coming through again, but with a tasty nutty undercurrent that lingered on in the aftertaste. The flavours began to emerge nicely as it approached room temperature, but remained modestly mild rather than jumping out at me in typical North American fashion. It's nicely carbonated and smooth, but not full enough in body.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by English Bay Pale Ale. Granville Island Brewing have come up with something complex, unique and very drinkable, but this beer might leave you with the feeling that its thin body doesn't let you get the most out of its character, compromising on some otherwise very enjoyable flavours.

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 4/5

Flavour 3.5/5

Mouthfeel 2/5

Beer Belly’s rating: 7/10

Old Tongham Tasty (6%) - Hogs Back Brewery, Surrey, England

Having tried a Hogs Back beer that I don't remember making a lasting impression on me I thought twice before picking this one up, but I knew I'd made the right decision seconds after pouring it from the bottle. Old Tongham Tasty has been brewed since shortly after the brewery was founded in 1992, and the brewers describe the flavour of this strong, dark ale as 'a festival of fun on your tongue' on the front and 'a festival of different tastes on the tongue' on the back. They're bold statements to make on the bottle, and not ones I could ignore easily. These, along with the delightful purple and green label were enough to prompt me to slip one into my shopping basket. Would it live up to expectations? 

Where colour was concerned, I had no expectations. Described as a 'dark ale' it could have been dark amber, ruby or brown, but instead it pours a colour so dark it looks like it could distort the space around it, pulling surrounding objects in at the speed of light before swallowing them up with a gurgling sound. The only colour barely visible is around the very edges of the glass where it just about manages to glow a deep red if you shine a bright light at it, but this could just be a result of the light waves approaching the liquid becoming longer as the darkness forces time to slow down. As for the head, the coffee-coloured foam rises about half a finger before fizzling down swiftly.

I didn't find the aroma all that pungent, but it's interesting: you can make out some dark chocolate, rum and raisin, port and plums. It's a bit like a fruit and nut chocolate bar on the nose.

The flavour, though, is where it really starts happening. It's malts galore: toasted nuts, dark chocolate, licorice, coffee and treacle, with a charred and bitter aftertaste. The maltiness is unsurprising given the four different malts used, of pale, crystal, chocolate and wheat varieties, all bringing their own unique character and sensation up and down the tongue. It's a deep, rich and bitter flavour that doesn't budge for a good while, and the rich flavours are complemented by some herbal notes from the Fuggles hops that are added at several stages of the process, bringing with them a lot of depth. As this one lingers on the tongue, all these flavours repeat themselves on some kind of tasty loop in various combinations as you breathe out, adding yet another dimension.

Surrey within England

The thick mouthfeel suits the flavour wonderfully, and has just the right amount of carbonation to offset it, along with a medium-dry finish.

It turns out Hogs Back really aren't being OTT when they refer to this as 'a festival of different tastes on the tongue'. It's deep, bold and complex yet not overpowering, and includes some lighter flavours in there too. In fact, there's so much going on that you can't even taste the 6% alcohol, making it surprisingly drinkable. Old Tongham Tasty is a festival of fun I'll happily come back to this winter.

Beer Belly's rating:

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 3/5

Flavour 4/5

Mouthfeel 5/5

Total 8/10

Boondoggle (5%) - Ringwood Brewery, Hampshire, England

"Down here in the New Forest," it says on the back of the label, "we call carefree, lazy days, 'Boondoggle days'". This beer from Ringwood brewery, situated just outside the New Forest in Hampshire has been conceived as just the excuse you need for a pint on those lazy, summer days (if an excuse is really what you needed). The free-living wild boar pictured chilling out on the bottle's golden-yellow label says it all.

Described as a blonde ale on the label, Boondoggle is probably darker than you'd expect. The colour of the label implies it will be a pilsneresque sparkly gold, but in reality what pours out is the kind of amber you're used to seeing from, well, an amber ale. The head is bright white, a little on the thin side and doesn't take long to disperse into a patchy layer with islands of small bubbles.

When I popped off the cap I was struck by the yeasty, bready aroma but once the first waft was out of the way mainly delicate hoppy, floral and herbal notes remained thanks to the First Gold and Fuggles hops. A combination of the yeast and citrus fruits with hints of marmalade remind me of a lemon drizzle cake; a combination I'm happy to try by all means.

Hampshire within England

Take a swig and you're presented with a thick and chewy liquid, smooth all but for the spicy tingling sensation on the back of the tongue which leaves a mildly dry finish, creating a moreish texture overall. The fruity flavour alternates nicely between sweet malts and bitter citrus, the bitter aftertaste becoming sweet and nutty when you exhale. It's interesting yet easy-going and certainly a fine candidate for a lazy summer session. Act with caution on a particularly warm day though, as the 5% ABV will make its presence felt!

Beer Belly's Rating:

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 3/5

Mouthfeel 4/5

Flavour 4/5

Total 7.5/10 

Have you tried Boondoggle from Ringwood Brewery? What do you think? Leave your comments and rating below!