Kindness is Contagious

Jeff Pickthall (being the kind bloke he is) dropped these bottles into the shop last week for Zak. Zak then (also being the kind bloke he is) gave one of the Barley Wines to me as their were two of them. And now (being the moderetly kind bloke I am) will now give it a little review. Let's face it how good do these bottles of beer look!!

I've never seen anything like these beers from Coniston before, and I certainly haven't smelled anything like this from Coniston before! It has a HUGE Barley Wine aroma. Big hints of sherry, massive rum soaked raisins, caramelized dates and burnt toffees. (a little over ripe banana fruitiness creeping in there too)

The first thing I thought when I gave it a whiff was, this smells a little like dialed down Thomas Hardy's Ale!

The flavour is thick and very rich. Very sweet, fruity and warming. At 8.5% though, you'd be well within you rights to expect it to be a little warming. Kind of like drinking liquidated Christmas cake! (that imagery appeal to you? get some of this beer then!) The bottle says it's a sipping beer, but I'm finding it so delicious that I'm rather chugging it back - yes I'd be one of those sorts of people who would like this in a bomber instead of a nip bottle :)

One of my favourite things about the beer though is the bottle statement "Best served by a log fire with snow on the ground at The Black Bull Inn Coniston" - A man can only dream.....

I'm hoping we'll be able to get some of these newbies for the shop, although I'm not sure what's going on with the Infinity IPA? I liked the old school look of the regular bottles, this (for me) just looks a little too similar to labels like a few others are doing nowadays. Oh well... I would really like to try it anyway!

More "bigger breweries" making awesome new beers....