Up and Under was produced for the Six Nations. It's a brown bitter, 4% ABV as all these Shep specials are. The aroma was slightly lightstruck, but not too bad. On the taste we're in very familiar territory: there's a sugary sweetness I've come to associate with this series, and a rising wateriness at the end. The milk chocolate malt aspect I've definitely met before, in a more terrifying aspect, in the woeful Tapping the Admiral. Here it's manageable. The slightly whiffy hops float about the aftertaste as well, creating a bit of a bum note, but not a jarring one. On balance, if there was nothing else in the pub, I think I could drink a couple of pints of this and not feel too hard done by, though I won't go so far as to say my €1.49 in Lidl was well spent.
On to the Double Stout, then. Drinking through the very impressive head I can see where Thom was getting the roast and vanilla notes from, I got quite a bit of caramel as well, with a long bitter finish in place of the dryness I was expecting. The roast is more in the rich and meaty category than burnt and grainy. It's nearly a very good beer and great value for money. Except... through it all I'm still getting that niggling wateriness and odd flashes of skunk. I'd be interested to find out if I could identify this as a Shepherd Neame stout in a blind tasting, but I feel I could. So while it may be dolled up as a stout -- trying a bit too hard with the paddywhackery label, may I add -- deep down this is just another one of those Shepherd Neame ales that Lidl sells.With two months of quiet, could this be the end of the Brewmaster's Choice series at Lidl? A rest would be nice.
I had the Double stout recently. I bought just a single bottle because like you, I was not expecting too much from it. I suppose if expectations are low, then dissappointment will be limited. I thought it wasn't half bad! It was a bit "thin" but drinkable. I followed it up with drinking an "O'Shea's" (from ALDI) Carlow brewed and it was much better. Still, it wasn't terrible as I had feared!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's hard to be angry with it. The O'Shea's is another very sweet one.
ReplyDeletei HAD BOTH OF THESE OUT OF THE LOCAL lIDL'S RECENTLY. gOD, ALL THEIR BEERS TASTE THE SAME, BUT THESE TWO WERE AMONGST THE BEST ITERATIONS OF THE SAME-INESS.
ReplyDeleteYES I DID ACCIDENTALLY HIT CAPS LOCK. There, fixed.
When I did my write up I expected to get picked up on the skunking issue that I didn't address. Luckily the bottle I drank was sheltered and skunk free. I've had one since that suffered from skunking and unsurprisingly it was a different beer. Much more like a SN ale - watery and metallic. Hard to explain all the differences really. Perhaps the light strike masks flavours that appear to pad things out.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't expecting any skunking, what with it being a stout, but when I opened it there it was. I can easily see how lightstruck off-flavours are going to leap out in front of anything else.
ReplyDeleteThe light struck off flavours will leap out, but I was curious about how they seem to alter the whole body of the beer.
ReplyDeleteAs the for the metallic note, I can only put that down to my palate being in two different places altogether at each tasting.
I did not particularly like either of these beers. Even with my expectations set to subway sandwich level mediocrity. If they were sold in a dark bottle so you were not playing skunk roulette I would buy them.
ReplyDeleteWill this blog wade into the good old fashioned camra versus bloggers slapfest at any stage? Not that Camra are any of Irish peoples business. It is entertaining though.
I was just thinking: I seem to be the only person on these islands not writing about it. But this a beer blog, not a beer blogging blog. I shall confine my ill-formed opinions on the matter to other people's comment threads.
ReplyDelete