Best case scenario

With an extended pandemic situation upon us, theme beers were inevitable. The Third Barrel collective went big early on, bringing out an answer to the crisis from each of their constituent parts. They extremely kindly donated a whole case of the set to my personal lockdown.

I'll begin with the Third Circle offering, nobly titled For The Greater Good. The enigmatic description is "cherimoya and mango fruit sour". Bonus points to anyone who knows what cherimoya tastes like; I certainly don't. So it's an innocent 3.7% ABV and a hazy orange colour. The aroma has a fruit husk sort of character; the stringier bits of the pineapple and pulped gritty red apples. It's different and intriguing. To taste, it's not sour, but that wasn't surprising. Thankfully it's not sickly sweet either: no lactose or other unwelcome adjuncts here. There's actually very little trace of the base beer and instead it wears those fruits up front. I couldn't identify mango specifically, and as I said I haven't a scooby about cherimoya. To me, it has a kind of candy lemonade effect; more lemonade than real fruit as there's no bitterness. There's a sorbet element too, but again not as bitter. A lemon or pear icepop, maybe. It is extremely refreshing, in the way a light and juicy fruit drink can be. Some sort of extra bitterness might improve it: I'm thinking rosemary or basil. Overall, though, it's a very decent fruit beer and certainly offers something different to any of the others I've tried.

The hop fiends in the Stone Barrel corner of the brewery have come up with Cabin Fever, an IPA of the DDH persuasion, 7% ABV and dry-hopped with Enigma. It's a pale and hazy yellow-orange, as one might expect, and has that characteristic aroma of cloying vanilla sweetness and sharp alium: spring onion, especially. You have to wait for the flavour to complete the full house: hard and hot alcohol with sharp dreggy yeast. A certain amount of pithy jaffa finds its way through this, and there's a degree of peppery spice, but overall this is not my kind of thing. Too boozy, savoury and gritty all at once. Add to that my new cardinal sin for hazy IPAs: it tastes very similar to lots of other ones. The previous beer was charming for its uniqueness; this one speeds rapidly in the opposite direction.

An imperial stout to finish: Third Barrel The Space Between Us, bourbon-aged and 9.5% ABV. It smells deliciously roasty, rich and oily like fresh-ground coffee; dry, but with a promise of brown sugar and cream. The texture is thiiick, almost syrupy, giving the flavour plenty of room to manoeuvre. And manoeuvre it does: the coffee turns sweeter, like Tia Maria; then there's hazelnut, cocoa and a tart tang of cherry. The barrel ageing has been done with a light touch, imparting complexity but no unsubtle bourbon twang. It doesn't even taste as strong as it is, and that's a good thing. It's not spectacular, nor pulling any showy tricks, but it's a class act all through.

Two out of three ain't bad at all, and the brewery is certainly doing its bit to keep my diet varied.