I seem to have an awful lot of dark beers knocking round the house at the moment. 'Tis the season, I suppose. But you always want what you can't have so I'm finding myself struggling to get through them, craving something paler and hoppier. Just as well my last homemade beer of the year is a big-assed US-style IPA then. But until that's ready for drinking, I'm clearing attic space.Most recently, it was Coopers Dark Ale for the chop. What we have is an intensely fizzy dark brown ale, with an endless convection of yeasty floaters lava-lamping around in the translucent body. The texture is very watery, with little by way of maltiness other than a faint echo of caramel, detectable if it's allowed warm well up. The hopping isn't up to much, but a few seconds after taking a sip I got a slow-rising horrible pencil-sharpener metallic tang, which mercifully doesn't last long.
One for drinking quickly and never touching again, I think.
