Tonight I went out to the Burnt Pig Ale Ouse for possibly the last time before further restrictions arrive - becasue COVID 19 O future reader - and I made this trip not just because I love the place but also because, frankly, they had on Urban Chicken's latest effort: Earthquake - a coffee milk stout. Stout? Yes, stout. It became my favoured style of ale around 2017 and then sort of... well, apparently I am a beardy stout drinker now.
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Oh, you would? Lovely. The first thing that struck me on being served a whole pint (I usually have halves because I am that person in the pub) was the consistency of it. Good biscuit-coloured head in the dim light and a deep darkness reminiscent of a recently abandoned brown field site. Good musty coffee aroma delights the nose, a roasted sensation wafting across the gravel car-park only just starting to be overgrown by the flowering weeds. Good and rich, pregnant with the promise of a solid stout like the ground waiting for redevelopment. Maybe a flat for a professional or else some social housing, either way, something is coming. And the thickness was beguiling, deep and dark. An edge of Saxon warband atop the slightly brown darkness.
Onto the tongue and the reward is a thick viscous mixture, subtle dry coffee with a hint of something else besides. Good thick milk texture on the middle of the taste with a good running of the malt down the sides, big and full. Wallowing luxuriously as it turns over and over in coffee and lactose so that it feels like a breakfast ale in the late evening. A fitting and filling pint that would suit the labourer returning from a long shift just before they go home to the rest of the family. Full of the sort of exotic flavours that, though ahistorical, makes me automatically think of a pre-Norman world and then canals being used for industrial transport. The horse plodding slowly but doggedly along the tow path as the hedgerow and brambles slowly creep into it and onto the edge of the canal wharf. The longboat drifting laden with steel or textiles as the birds fly overhead from the meadows stretching into the middle distance. Copses of tangled oak and ash pepper the landscape, picking out hollows in the fields, like the coffee here.
It ends, though, it finishes. A warmth spreading down the gullet, a coffee dryness and then it is gone. It's good, really good. Deep and dark and perfect for a rainy evening where the weather has turned and the cold is seeping in through the water. Whipped clouds scud across a darkening sky as the sun sets in bruising of the light, street lamps burn, the room goes darker, the stout gets thicker and the fact that it is a pint of it really starts to hit. Not so strong that it will leave me with a headache but enough that it knocks the day on the head. Not so think that it feels like a meal or dessert but enough that it demands some chips and gravy on the walk home. A demand that I clearly gave into because it would be rude not to.
Overall? This is a brilliant stout. I am glad I got out to have it. If you get a chance, get out and have it. Lockdown is coming. This will set you up.
