This is a great big conker of a beer.
A beer full of nostalgia.
Deep brown and smoky, it tastes of autumn woodland and bonfires.
It tastes like memories of childhood games of chase through school playing fields and kicking leaves on the way home from school, your satchel full of homework, but the weekend ahead of you.
There’s a lovely thick caramel presence, gloopy and satisfying, and offset by a tamarind tartness that builds into a great big sticky toffee apple handed to you by an elderly gentleman smoking a pipe.
And it’s that pipe tobacco and woodland campfire that I really like about this beer.
It’s warm and inviting and feels friendly and safe and exciting at the same time.
The hops here are very herbal, full of elderflower and bark pithiness with only the merest dash of citrus.
The only downside for me was that I found it a little bit flat.
I’d have liked a bit more fizz.
But nonetheless, this is very nice indeed.