“Mata Black-Bru pours a rich deep black. This very drinkable Irish style stout is full of alluring flavours and aromas of coffee, chocolate and roasted barley which linger with every mouthful. Black-Bru is delicious, with its distinctive roasted coffee and chocolate notes. Brewed with a combination of 8 different malts makes this dark ale special”.
Our second addition to this Kiwi breweries range, although if we were brewing a stout, we’d most probably call it a stout…not a dark ale. Semantics. Wonderfully rich aroma and flavour to this kiwi STOUT. Served in a beer tulip the jet black pour produced a finger and a half of light tanned foam that settles to a fine covering over the top. Reasonable head retention. Laced quite well. Lovely roasted characters emanating off the nose – we’re enjoying a blend of coffee, dark fruits, molasses, whiskey and biscuity malts. Maybe a hint of peat creeping through too. The texture is oily with medium-full body. Heavily carbonated. Upfront the tongue is met with hints of coffee, dark malts, chocolate and a subtle warming alcohol. It wasn’t very high in ABV (5%) so it was quite strange to have such a presence in flavour. A touch of oak aged whiskey and a hint of smoke develops before a dry, roasty finish rounds it off. All in all it was a nice beer, a tad unbalanced and not very sessional due to the unnecessarily high carbonation but a definite quaffer. Not a bad brew at all.