Fully on board

Today in backlog clearance, I have the winter specials from Hopfully, and big fellows they are too.

The lightweight is daintily named Dancing Shoes, a barley wine of 11.7% ABV. It's a lovely dark red colour, though would be even prettier if it weren't so murky. The aroma is a gently sweet mix of toffee and jammy fruit; strawberry in particular. It's as heavy as you'd think, lightly carbonated, chewy and warming. Something would be very remiss were this not the case. What usually goes wrong at this point is that the beer is too hot, or too bitter, or too dreggy, or all three. Happily, none of that occurs with this one. The flavour is quite gentle and malt-forward. I was half expecting some big American hops, and the body could have supported that, but the summer fruit is as hopped-up as it gets, while underneath is all caramel, marzipan and Nutella, giving an overall sensation of fancy donuts and cupcakes. It's not too sweet, though, and you get your value out of the strength from the comforting belly warmth it delivers after swallowing. Back when other people used to write beer blogs with tasting notes, the phrase "fireside sipper" tended to get thrown around in winter. I'm happy to wheel that one out once more and apply it to this in the most complimentary way.

Without looking too closely, I thought the next one would be something similar: 12.3% ABV and barrel aged. But it's actually a sour fruit beer: purple with a pink head and employing raspberry, blackberry, lemon and cherry. They've called it Levitate. It smells tart, but in a lemon juice way, not the souring effect of yeast and bacteria. The raspberry also sits to the fore here. There's a lot of raspberry in the flavour too: rich and jammy, like compote or even simpler ice cream sauce. That runs parallel with a bourbon heat: vanilla and honey, shading towards ice cream and flan. Sourness is not part of the taste, and I can't pick out any of the fruit other than raspberry. It's still very tasty, though. I very quickly got used to the barrel and berry combination, and was enjoying it before the end. It's a lovely blend of summer and winter flavours, and they don't clash with each other. I feel perhaps there should have been more complexity, given the convoluted ingredients list and production process, but I liked it as it is: frivolous, dessert-like, but with a warm and grown-up centre. Unusual, but delicious.

Proper winter beer doesn't have to mean stout. Well done to Hopfully for the creativity on display here.