Broughton Ales 'Dark Dunter'

This one comes from a brewery that I am familiar with from my pub days; one of Broughton's ales, The Ghillie, used to pop up occasionally as a guest beer.

I got sent this from the brewery by virtue of being pretty quick on cutting and pasting questions and answers for their 'Tuesday Trivia.' I claim no kind of expertise or talent for having won, so I'd say if you can get on Twitter and on a keyboard of a Tuesday Broughton (@BroughtonAles) are well worth a follow to get yourself all sorts of goodies, as you can see from the picture. The Dark Dunter is the bottle on the left without a label - it's a new brew and not on general release in bottles as yet so it was interesting to give it a try. I came across this from the pump-clip artist - not one for the faint hearted; it may well make you sprint past a garden full of gnomes at full tilt next time you're passing one at night. I'm sure there's some back-story to this one!

While I'm a massive fan of Scottish beer in general, 'Scottish Ale' as a style, isn't really one of my favourites, so I wasn't sure what I was going to make of this one. It pours an almost impenetrable brooding dark brown. As you'd expect the malt is dominant on the nose; there's loads of prunes and sweet spices. On the palate there's dried fruit, oats and dark chocolate. Generally I find Scottish Ale a bit sweet for my liking but this stayed away from being cloying; probably benefiting from both the medium body and not being too high in alcohol (5%). It'd be a great one for a haggis supper, along with a wee drop of whisky of course.

My wife's, rather more concise, tasting note was 'Yeah, I like that a lot; it's very easy drinking.' It sounds like I'm being forgiven for winning too many pint glasses in the trivia competition. Cheers Broughton, Black Douglas to follow!

Innis & Gunn 'Irish Whiskey Cask'

A few weeks ago I did a review of three of the Innis & Gunn range. Despite (or maybe because of) my not being that impressed by the range, Katherine from I & G got in touch to find out if I'd like to try their whiskey cask aged stout. I agreed, hence what would be an otherwise very short blog post.

There's plenty of roasted malt and coffee and on the palate. It's got a bit more body than the others, without actually being full-bodied, which I think marries it all the better with the whiskey flavours, and makes it rather moreish. There's a light, lifted, almost minty note to it (I realise that sounds revolting but it works - I don't mean mint flavour but more the sensation). Irish whiskey is generally towards the lighter, zestier end of the scale, and I think that works quite well with a stout that, while strong at 7.4%, isn't up there with the likes of the big Imperial Stouts on the richness front. There is a hint of the estery banana flavour on the finish that characterised the others in the range but on the whole I think this is a much better beer than the other three that I tried. The toffee and treacle don't dominate the original character of the beer, and so it retains its balance of bitter malt and sweetness.

Just to give you an idea on price. Beers of Europe are selling this edition for £2.19 (33cl).

Many thanks to Katherine and Innis and Gunn for trying to convert me! Since the issue of feedback has sprung up over a few blog posts this week (See Nate, B&B and Jenny's blogs) it's good to see that breweries do look at some reviews in the constructive way that they are meant. In the interests of full disclosure I should probably point out that I wasn't asked to review the beer, merely if I fancied trying it.

Innis & Gunn

When I set out on my mini-exploration of a few oak-influenced beers it was because I'd amassed a bit of a collection, more by accident than design, and so I thought it'd be a bit of fun. I may have been mistaken. I honestly do try and avoid negative reviews, so I am hoping that this is the last one I do for a while, it being rather self-imposed because of the oak exploration idea rather than wanting to openly criticise a beer or, as it turned out, three, Innis & Gunn beers.

There is a plus, although it probably comes across as a bit of a backhanded compliment. The beers look good, which is presumably a big selling point (hence the otherwise unjustifiable clear glass), particularly the Original.

Sorry, I forgot one!

Original: Banana, caramel, vanilla. Some toffee and brown paper notes on the palate. Medium bodied. Drying oak finish. For me too many of the flavours and aromas come from the American white oak, and not enough from the original beer. I wasn't overly complimentary about the Tullibardine for the same reason, but it's actually better than this.
Rum Finish: Pours darker, the banana flavours and aromas are still there, but riper this time, as if more time's been spent in the fruit bowl. More tropical fruit and spice on the palate but apart from a bit of sweetness the rum doesn't really come to the fore. I'd suggest that this wasn't a cask from a really full on dark rum like the excellent Doorly's XO. The finish is confected, cloying and a bit unpleasant.
Winter Beer 2011: The banana is back. It's boozy, with a bit of a pithy bite - think mixed peel. It tastes somewhat synthetic, kind of carrying on from the confected character of the rum finish. It has a similar finish to that too. I definitely needed more body, and more spice.

So how to put a positive spin on this little exercise? I'd still give their recently released whiskey stout a go. From trying superb beers like Ola Dubh and some of BrewDog's Paradox range I'm beginning to think a richer, more robust beer simply stands up to oak better. To use a wine comparison. Oak use in white wine production has become a lot more sophisticated, leading to oaked whites that allow the fruit to come through rather than being like biting a twig.  A lesson learnt in some brewing circles but not others?

Caledonian 'Flying Dutchman' Wheat Beer

Nicely designed, very dutch orange label, I'm sure the royal family would be proud. Unless they taste the beer that has shamelessly used their colours - because it's just a bit... Meh.

It's suggested that the beer is served chilled, but it didn't actually taste of very much so I let it warm up a bit. This didn't particularly help. It's supposedly flavoured with orange, coriander and liquorice but, certainly at fridge temperature, it's so subtle as to be wasted.

Light body, refreshing but really kind of disappointing. Talking about the label is rarely a good sign at the start of a review, it's like when you're at school and you say 'What do you think of that essay?' and the teacher says 'Well, the handwriting is good.' So I guess, 'can do better' is appropriate - and Caledonian can!

4.5% abv, £1.89 (50cl) from Sainsbury's