“An intriguing dark ale that moves to its own beat, our minds set about creating a beer that contradicted itself. Rich, dark and flavoursome but at the same time ever refreshing. Malt driven but with the aromatic lift of generous doses of hops. With the help of traditional open fermentation tanks we let our Dark Ale yeast play… and it likes to play hard. Yeast normally does its thing in closed tanks that tends constrains it work, but with open tanks (that are just like a big soup tin without the lid), the yeast is allowed to run wild”.
Brewed by the guys at Little Creatures, which unfortunately got sold to a huge parent company that doesn’t care much for the real craft beer industry. Anyhow, this dark ale was served in to a shaker glass with the deep mahogany/brown pour boasting attractive red hues. Atop sits a one and a half finger tan head that retains well, settling to a decent covering over the top. Good lacing. Not a great deal of character in the aroma, what we could manage to pick up were subtle wafts of sweet malts, cocoa, nuts, caramel and plum. Not too bad. The mouth feel was creamy with mild carbonation and medium body. Upfront, roasted malts and chocolate work their way into a slightly sweeter mid-palate. The finish has a nice nuttiness with caramelised hints of toffee and cocoa. 4.9% ABV doesn’t really help the slightly thin body, but essentially it’s brewed commercially for sessional drinking so we guess they achieved what they were after. Meh, it’s just not crafty enough for us.