August 2011

I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker; having always found instant to be a very poor alternative to a decent cup of tea and although I do enjoy the very occasional mug of the proper stuff, I haven’t gotten around to learning the art of brewing it.

The chances are you are probably a lot more au-fait with the complex, bittersweet flavours of the coffee bean than I am. But even my decaffeinated taste buds can detect the very mocha-like flavours found in many stouts and porters. These flavours are usually derived from the use of dark, roasted malts, but if a brewer wants to emphasise these notes it is not uncommon to beef them up with the addition of some freshly ground beans. As is the case with a rather fine example from Sussex: the Dark Star Espresso Stout.

The beer is more colourful than most stouts, with red and amber highlights and a thin, magnolia shortbread biscuit head. It is fairly flat with little or no effervescence and the head fades reasonably quickly. The nose is very intense, almost physical in its presence and dominated by strong black coffee.

There are suggestions of molasses, bitter chocolate and dried fruit, but they all play second fiddle to the freshly ground Arabica beans. The beer is medium bodied, with little or no alcohol burn. The palate is well rounded with sweet oloroso sherry notes, a surprising amount of hop bitterness and a dry, grainy finish. It is a much lighter beer than both my experience and that almighty aroma led me to expect. It does linger on the palate in a very pleasant way, but unlike so many stouts, it isn’t brash or overblown, it is simply a well-crafted, smooth, extremely neckable beer of both modest strength (4.2%abv) and price (Just over £2 for 50cl)

Although an extremely successful English brewery, Dark Star is just now making inroads in Scotland. The only other bottled beer that is available up here is a golden summer ale that the missus dismissed as being to sweet and floral. For now I’ll take her word for it, but given the quality of the stout you can be sure I’ll be giving it a go soon.