Booze: Shepherd Neame Double Stout

Evening!

I was sent this bottle by Shepherd Neame, along with a bottle of the new India Pale Ale. As I understand, these are massively old recipes that have been decoded from ye olden days. Back in the day, brewers would encrypt their recipes so that other brewers couldn't copy them. It's pretty awesome. If there were old school hackers, they must have been pretty tech.

Anyway, this is a double stout. It's 2am and I'm listening to a lot of power metal. Right now, Manowar - Warriors of the World. Everyone loves power metal.

Beer..

Brewery: Shepherd Neame
Location: Kent, United Kingdom
Beer: Double Stout
Style: Stout
ABV: 5.2%

Look:
It's very black with a very thick, solid head. This stuff is BLACK. I mean, black. You can't see through it for shit. It just looks wonderfully stouty. I really like the wobbly head.

Smell:
Coffee and chocolate with a little bit of honey sweetness. It smells fucking beautiful to be honest. A lot of beers in this style have all of the coffee and chocolate but that's about it. There's usually nothing to balance it out. I could smell this all day but I suppose I better drink some.

Taste:
Initial big, freshly ground coffee hit followed by some of that sweetness I was sniffing at. We've got some dark chocolate going on too which is a great balancer. We've also got some hops in here; it's not overhopped, it's just adding something.

Mouthfeel:
It starts off feeling really heavily carbonated but that dies off and becomes really dry near the end. It's kind of what I expected from this particular beer.

Verdict:
I'll be honest, I'm only just really getting in to more dark beers. If you read this blog/my tweets/facebook regularly, you'll see that I'm a massive hop head. I really fucking like this for a really fucking flavoursome stout at just 5.2%. I find that most stouts that pack this much flavour seem to be at about 7% or higher which, as nice as they are, sometimes isn't ideal. I think this is going to be the perfect beer to have after my Christmas dinner this year. It's fucking delicious.

Thanks so much to Shepherd Neame for sending me this beer to have a very fucking expletive filled review. I won't hold it against them if they don't retweet this.

I've gotta say, Shepherd Neame are a brewery that I have quite sinfully forgotten. I've been a complete twat in the last year. I've discovered new breweries and forgotten about breweries that I really love. I'm really sorry. I will endeavor to drink your beers more.

Shepherd Neame online:

http://www.shepherdneame.co.uk
https://twitter.com/ShepherdNeame

Nate
http://www.twitter.com/NateDawg27
http://www.facebook.com/BoozeBeatsBites

Comments

  1. I opened this last night Nate and totally agree, really good, the stout I mean of course not the power metal.

    Not that I am adverse to a bit of power metal btw, it's just not what this comment is about.

    Hope that's cleared that up, thank you...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha thanks Phil! Glad you enjoyed it too!

    I didn't want to be cliche and open it with some Black Metal, y'know? Manowar are awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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