Well I didn't expect that!!!

At my place of occupation, Beer Ritz, we often get new beers in. It keeps the local "beer geeks" happy (and I include all who work there in that catagory, myself included) and it's very cool to work where you can always get to try new beers. This is always due to the fact that Zak is a beer guru, and being the excellent business man he is, makes sure all parts of the customer basis are catered for.

We got a new beer in on Wednesday from the great importers of foreign beer, that is James Clay. It's called Pepe Nero, and it comes from Goose Island - the super Chicago brewery. It brags about itself to be a belgian style farmhouse ale (that's saison to those who are beer geeks) made with peppercorns. (possibly to get that peppery-yeasty drying quality that some Belgian saisons do)

This is the most interesting beer that I've tried this year. Those of you who've had saison beer before will know that it's not supposed to look like this!....

What the hells going on there?? Goose Island have seemed to have produced a black saison!! But what's it like, before all of you start burning your books? Well it's exactly as it sounds. It has a massive saison feel to it. There is an obvious peppercorn flavour to it which I really enjoy (drying and moorish) There's American presence in there too, you can taste the sweet caramel malts and there a lot of hop zing character. It's kind of, saison meets black IPA! An awesome beer from a consistently good brewery. Come grab some while you can.

I say while you can because new beers come and go quite quick in our shop. We don't have an infinite amount of shelf space, and so some beers must have an end sometimes. That's not to say that they may come back in the future, just that some beers are not a constant permanent feature for us.

So tonight we say goodbye, for now at least, (because I just bought the last bottle and am drinking it now) to Stones IPA. This is a beer which needs no explanation, they can do that pretty well themselves! All I will say, If you don't want to miss out, then get the beers in!!!