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Thursday, June 05, 2008

Kelham Island Brewery


A few weeks back, I posted this article waxing lyrical about The Hunter's Inn, a pub that truly made my day. More particularly, a certain beer that I enjoyed there made my day.
Kelham Island's Brooklyn Smoked Porter really knocked me for six. I have tasted beers with the word 'smoked' in the title before and found the majority of them to be shocking. If you're going to accentuate a smoked aspect of a beer, then it's got to be balanced; I find this small, yet vital, point is missed all too often,. There's nothing worse than a pint that tastes likes a packet of Bacon Fries.
But this is balanced. Wonderfully so, in fact. The smoke comes through the initial bone-dry coffee and bitter chocolate hit - not on top of it. As you would expect form a porter, it packs a hefty 6.5 abv - although you would never know from the taste. Give me a pint of this and a slice of Chocolate Brownie on a cold day ( a strange thought to have on a summer's day but bear with me) and I'm laughing.
I know taste is subjective, but this truly was a gorgeous pint - and surely a flagship for this well-known Sheffield Brewery. Seek it out.

* By the way, any brewery that has a couple of beers named after Springsteen songs are OK with me. Whoops, just outed myself as a fan of The Boss.

4 comments:

Heather said...

I completely get your meaning on smoke. That Brooklyn Smoked Porter sounds like the cat's pajamas with a slice of chocolate brownie (and haha at your Springsteen love!).

A.C. said...

Isn't it amazing how dark beers and brownies go together? I used to hate dark beers but once I discovered the chocolate-coffee tones I was hooked.

Leigh said...

Heather - Hi! I've been on 'Vacay' as you guys like to say!

Boak said...

Sounds lovely. I've been impressed with everything I've tried from Kelham Island. You definitely need balance with smoke flavours!