9 December 2017

Old Ford Export Stout (Waitrose) By @SpectreUK


It's unusual to be snowed in for a few days here in middle England in winter time. Of course it snows in Scotland and often on the peaks of Wales, but I don't recall seeing any snow last year and not much for a few years before that. Yet here we are snowed in for a weekend and mostly everything has ground to a halt. There's traffic chaos with the odd folk here and there trying to struggle through the meagre amount of snow we've already had, and I'm sure they will be pleased to hear that there is more snow on the way over the next few days. Searching through my beer shelf I found this rather fetching Old Ford Export Stout, which was produced by the Redchurch Brewery down in Harlow. I do like a good stout this time of year. They can be quite filling and warming on their own, and at 7.5% volume I could tell this stout should be able to warm up chilled fingers and heart from the icy cold outside.

On opening this Old Ford Export Stout I could smell a decent aroma of herbal hops backed up by the malted barley, followed by a sweetness and touch of coffee to finish from the roasted chocolate malt. That was a gloriously deep smell from a jet black stout that promised to be full of flavour to coat my thoroughly chilled old bones. On pouring there was a cheerful muddy grey head. On taste the herbal hops sprang to the fore, only to be quickly enveloped by a heavy soaking black wave of roasted chocolate malt that released a coffee taste, followed again by a slightly sweet and rich dark chocolate malt. As this second soaking of dark chocolate flavour receded back into the muddy grey topped black sea of my glass beer mug, the aftertaste brought back the roasted coffee which smoothed out slowly on the beach of my tongue. Old Ford Export Stout was gloriously flavoursome and warming to my cockles. I'm glad they kept a few of these back, as it would have been a crime to export them all!

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