Elusive Brewing Sticky Toffee Imperial Stout (The Wee Beer Shop) By @SpectreUK

I really don’t like turkey, so these days I get treated like a king to a big pork belly roast and crackling. Today is my second shot at Christmas dinner. I have had the most awful flu this past week. I’m not going to go into much detail, but most of Christmas Day was spent coughing, feeling nauseous, and in high fever. So, I couldn’t eat my Christmas meal or have any Christmas Pudding.

So, today a new pork belly roast is in the oven, and feeling only slightly better, I’m hoping I can stop coughing and hold off any more fevers long enough to enjoy it. I’m hoping to have Christmas Pudding for afters washed down with this Sticky Toffee Imperial Stout pudding ale.

At 10% in volume Elusive Brewing has teamed up with Sussex Small Batch, The Hornet in Chichester, and Needle & Pin in Loughborough to produce their take on Jim’s Sticky Toffee Pudding Stout. Lactose, vanilla, and a little salt were added in the brewing of this Sticky Toffee Imperial Stout. It all sounds pretty tasty, so, I’ll open the can and find out.

This Sticky Toffee Imperial Stout did have a bit of a salty smell to it on opening. It made me wonder just how much salt they had added in the brewing. There was also a milkiness, a touch of caramel, all mixed with roasted chocolate malt and a hint of coffee in the aroma. On taste the bitterness from the herbal hops worked hard against the milk and vanilla, whereas the salt attempted to remove any sweetness from the malts, there was then a little roasted chocolate malt boarding on coffee into the aftertaste. Having said that, I didn’t dislike this stout, rather saw it as not particularly pudding material.

I was a bit surprised to find this Sticky Toffee Imperial Stout wasn’t the liquid pudding I was lead to believe. It actually went better washing down my main course, which was perfectly cooked melt in the mouth pork belly, with the best salted crackling on top. And then followed by excellent Christmas pudding and a pot of low calorie vanilla ice cream scooped on top (as I’ve run out of calories for today). Well, you need a good treat when you’re ill. Second shot at Christmas dinner successful. Merry belated Christmas to you all.