12 July 2010

One out of three ain't good

It's not Nutty Black, it's Very Nutty Black: this is Thwaite's super-charged mild with the ABV savagely ramped up to 3.9% ABV from the usual 3.3 -- handle with care.

Once you're safely strapped in and have popped the cap with your asbestos bottle opener you'll find a beer that pours promisingly black with a nice tan head. The texture is velvety smooth and the flavour is... really quite boring, actually. I'm looking for the roasted coffee notes that one would expect from a mild but there's no sign of them. I've always liked Thwaites beers in the past and I know they're the sort of brewer that can pack all sorts of interesting stuff into a low-ABV package, but this isn't one of those. Yes it's slightly dry and if you concentrate really hard you might get a whisper of plums, but there's little else. There's certainly nothing that I would count as even remotely nutty. But it is black: I'll grant them that.

10 comments:

  1. hah - I actually liked this. Really. Better than 'regular' Nutty Black, anyway!

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  2. I've always liked this but my last bottle was less good. Get on cask (preferably straddling the Pennines in a small village) and perhaps try another bottle...there is some nut in there, honest!

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  3. "Get on cask" is would suspect that the bottled version may not be as good!

    "There's certainly nothing that I would count as even remotely nutty." Nut brown ales has nothing to do with nut flavour or aroma its two do with a turn of the 20th century song!

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  4. If nut flavour is not part of the equation then the use of an intensifier is completely inappropriate.

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  5. I suspect the name may be an attempt at a play of the expression "nutty slack", a type of coal.

    Personally I don't expect to find roasted coffee notes in a dark mild except way down in the mix, and if I get roasted coffee notes front and centre I'm likely to stick that beer in the circle marked "porter", though that may just be my age …

    Oh, and Oblivious, "nut brown ale" as an expression goes at least as far back as John Milton in the 17th century:

    "Young and old come forth to play
    On a Sunshine Holyday,
    Till the live-long day-light fail:
    Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale"

    (L'Allegro, 1645)

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  6. Wow interesting, thanks Martyn. I learned something new today... who knew Milton was dropping references to nut brown ales.

    What's the best example of a nut brown ale these days? Maybe Sam Smith's Nut Brown?

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  7. I don't think there's a formal style here. If it's an ale and it's brown-coloured I think it can be described as such. Milton's use of the Lovibond scale was limited.

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  8. Ah very good Martyn, that does push the date back a bit :)

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  9. And when he writes "Spicy Nut-brown Ale"... ?

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  10. With, I'm guessing, little to no hops (ale rather than beer) spices are to be expected, I'd have thought.

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