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beer reviews real ale

The best chocolate beer?

Saltaire Triple Chocoholic might be my favourite chocolate beer.  It’s not sweet like some, but definitely smells of chocolate.  It’s dark, creamy and extremely full bodied, almost like a Spanish hot chocolate fit for dipping your churros.

It’s like (but better than) the Meantime effort at its best.

And, for all its intense flavour and gooeyness, is a mere 4.8%.

Once again, evidence that Saltaire are masters of flavouring beer.

Boak

Categories
beer reviews real ale

Fruit beer that works

Getting fruit flavour into beer is harder than you might imagine.

Some fruit beers are too sweet, others are too sour. The fruit flavour can be overpowering, or barely perceptible. Worst of all, it can sometimes be just too pink.

Saltaire’s Blackberry Cascade and Raspberry Blonde get it exactly right. They both taste enough of fruit that you can tell it’s there without being told (we tested this theory on unsuspecting friends). They’re a little sweet, hardly at all sour, and un-dyed.

We’re not 100 per cent sure but we suspect the trick might be to get over the purism which says fresh fruit is best: these beers are ‘infused’ with ‘flavours’, which to us suggests extracts or syrups. Who cares, though? It works.

Blackberries are Boak’s favourite fruit, which is why Blackberry Cascade has edged it as our beer of the week.