Tasting Notes: Arbor Ales: Free Style Fridays 2: Approved

Arbor Ales: Free Style Fridays 2: Approved (England: Imperial Stout: 7.0% ABV)

Visual: Black. froths up nice but ends up with just a beige dusting and rim instead of a full head. When swirled the beer leaves a viscous brown sheen.

Nose: Lots of roasted barley. Light oak. Milk chocolate. Good but not overpowering hop profile. Vanilla toffee.

Body: Bitter. Burnt wood. Bitter coffee. Cloying cream. Some roasted nuts. Nettles and hops. Touch of apricot.

Finish: Very bitter with a growling hop character. Charring. Coffee. The bitterness really lasts.

Conclusion: I’m a sucker for a good piss take. This beer weighing in at a measly and non society fabric threatening 7% abv had a good attitude and a great roasted aroma.

It’s a beer with a tingling heavy hop character. The beer label advises against chilling and damn are they right. For all the heavy character of the beer if it is even slightly chilled it seems to thin leaving just the hop character and the rest of the flavour vanishes skipping straight to the bitter finish.  Yes I completely ignored the advice on the label initially. It’s always worth tinkering just in case.

So after I let it warm back up I returned to a more interesting beer.  It’s a more flavoursome beer this way, though still not varied in its flavour range. The bitter coffee and hops are its mainstay.  Considering the abv and what I assume to be very liberal hop use I will admit I expected a little more variety. It is worth swilling the beer around on your tongue a bit as that brings out some nice apricot touches and lets you feel the smooth texture.

I have mentioned before that I tend to butt heads with heavily hopped stouts, and it takes an exceptional example for me to get along with them (though when they are good they can be exceptional) so I will say I was impressed that despite the heavy hopping they kept the beer very drinkable.  It kicks out the bitterness nicely without it getting sticky and sickly. That is no mean feat and an element a hell of a lot of brewers get wrong.

So a nice balance of aggressive hopping to drinkability. Great aroma and ok if not particularly varied main body. I am on the fence about this beer. Every now and then it does seem unexpectedly thin; then again every now and then the apricot burst comes out just right and really sells the beer right.  I’d say it’s a fun, if slightly flawed beer, but it has enough chutzpah to push it through its flaws. Not bad at all in the end analysis.

Background: Ok, this one may need some explanation.  Here in the UK our Tory overlords have decided that after years of screaming out against nanny state interference in peoples lives, now that they were in power it was fine time to indulge in some nanny state interfering in peoples lives but against things they dislike.  Like that evil commoners drink – beer.

So they introduced a cheap tax rate for beers below 2.8%, and added a fucking mental rate for beers over 7.2% ABV. Now I’m a big fan of our NHS, and the way it is comparatively hard to fall between the cracks here by ending up out of a job over here, and all that costs so I canna complain about paying tax. What I complain about is this attempt to manipulate the beers towards lower abvs. Sod it, last time this happened is when we ended up with 3.8 % abv as the expected abv for beer and moved away from the bastard huge beers of the past.  Beer style variety is good, and that needs a viable range of abvs.

So here we have an Imperial Stout at 7.0%, and thus as it says, not considered evil by the Tories. Arbors Ale’s “Approved”. I admit. I bought it just because of that sardonic attitude. I am that shallow.

No I don’t like the Conservative Party. Why do you ask?  Oh the beer is a heavily hopped stout by the way made as part of one of Arbor’s more experimental batches by the way. Maybe I should have paid more attention to that in those paragraphs I just wrote.