Kernel India Brown Ale

Just to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. I hope you're both well...

This was supposed to be a post for #seasonstweetings twitter tasting, as set up (over a week ago now) by the irrepressible Phil over at Beersay. My crazy busy December meant I failed completely to get any seasonal beers in, but when you have to make do with The Kernel it's hardly a sacrifice! In fact, had I not already done my Golden Pints for this year, it may well have been a contender for a mention somewhere.

It all starts with a gorgeous creamy chocolate aroma with the faintest touch of hazelnuts and pine/citrus (orange) hops. It's a soft, thick luxurious duvet of a beer, scarily drinkable and rarely has 33cl seemed such a small portion! There's milk chocolate in there but the nuttiness balances out the sweetness, and that's what this beer represents to me - complexity and balance.

Marvelous. Happy Christmas everybody!

Thwaites Co-Operative 'Strong Brown Ale'

I thought I'd check this one out since the beer selection in my local Co-Op is rather lame but I'm a fan of Thwaites beers.

It's all treacly malt, almost molasses like in weight and texture. Great body and mouth feel and a rich, dense, satisfying umami, almost broth-like palate. Lots of flavours of Marmite and Chinese black-bean sauce mixed in with that sweetness. It's not a style of beer I often enjoy (time and a place!) but this wasn't half bad, certainly a meal-in-a-glass sort of beer, and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of heavier brown ales - Newcastle Brown it ain't.

5.0% abv £1.90 (ish) from the Co-Op

Brooklyn Brown Ale

Blogs are subjective. It's part of their appeal, and why it's fun to write them and fun to comment on them. I do drink more beers than I necessarily feel the need to blog about, sometimes due to time constraints but often due to the fact that a stand-alone tasting note is only interesting up to a point, and a blog that is just an extension of ratebeer or the like probably isn't that interesting to the people who are good enough to read what I do write!

This is different though. When I was doing the wine 'practical' part of my WSET diploma it was interesting to try so many wines that I could get to the point of recognising them as being very good, without them necessarily being something I'd buy - and not just because some of them were extremely expensive. Obviously this is more towards the beer or wine judging end of things, which goes away from my original point about blogs, but it was this beer that made me think of this and I thought I'd share. Do people encounter many beers that they objectively think are good, but just not really their cup of tea?



A dark brown beer, the head fades quickly. There's molasses on the nose and cinder toffee with slight floral notes on the palate. I got Marmite and other yeasty aromas as it warmed in the glass. Overall it's an interesting beer, with plenty of character, but I'm not convinced I'd buy it again.

5.6% abv, £1.69 (355ml) from Beers of Europe