After the rather wonderful pint of Kelham Island Pale Rider I recently enjoyed in Sheffield, this is the second beer in a row to hail from Yorkshire.

This time, however, we’re a little closer to home. A mild December Saturday saw me drift back to the Anchor Tap in SE1, the same pub where I sampled the Taddy Porter, to discover yet more of their tiny wood-panelled rooms. This one had a piano, and it had a burly man happy to dispense a bottle of this rather nice Oatmeal Stout.

The use of oats in the brewing process dates back centuries, and while it is apparently a bit of a sod to brew with, turning the wort a gelatinous, porridgy sort of texture and clogging all the equipment, it imparts a lovely, silky smooth texture, which complements a good stout beautifully.

And this is a terrifically good stout, pouring a deep reddish colour that’s almost black unless you hold it up to the light, and with a huge, dense tan head.

At first taste Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is sweet, tangy and remarkably smooth, thanks to that oatmeal in the mash. Straight from the fridge it’s a little too cold, but as it warms hints of licorice and aniseed appear, and the finish becomes dry and moreishly bitter.

This is another top notch beer from old Sam Smith. It’s very easy-drinking for a stout, and it’s even certified vegan, if that floats your boat. If push came to shove, I’d probably plump for the Taddy Porter over this if I wasn’t blogging, but the Oatmeal Stout beats something like a Guinness hands down.

Facts and Figures

There are no less than four Samuel Smith’s beers in The Book—an honour shared only by London’s Meantime brewery—so it seems like it might be time to try another one. I sampled old Sam’s Imperial Stout a little while ago, but wasn’t completely blown away by it. Nor have I been truly impressed by the several other beers that I’ve tried in the brewery’s pubs.

This one though, the 5.0% ABV Taddy Porter, is really quite famous, and is very well regarded by those in the know. It also makes for the perfect excuse to seek out a pub that I’ve heard a lot of good things about.

The Anchor Tap is tucked away in London’s Shad Thames neighbourhood and wears its long history with pride. As its name suggests, it was originally the brewery tap for the Anchor Brewery, which was situated on the banks of the Thames next to Tower Bridge, but has long since been converted into apartments that you and I will never be able to afford.

The pub these days is operated by Sam Smith’s, and remains an unashamedly unreconstructed oasis of authenticity despite being besieged by gentrification and tourism. It’s a rabbit warren of tiny wood-panelled rooms, darts and pork scratchings, and even has a devoted cadre of working class locals, although goodness knows where they actually live.

And conveniently enough, it has Taddy Porter in Sam Smith’s characteristically generous 550ml bottles.

From the bottle, Taddy Porter pours a sumptuous deep brown, almost black, colour with a gigantic tan head thicker than some of the accents in the main bar. There’s an immediate waft of chocolate, black coffee and dark, bitter malts.

And it’s good. It tastes like the quintessential porter, with bitter and sweet flavours in perfect balance. Taddy Porter is smooth, deep and dark, and thankfully avoids the slight wateriness that can plague lesser porters.

This is probably the best porter I’ve covered on the blog so far, and one of the best I’ve ever tried. Given that porter is the most London of beer styles, it’s both impressive and refreshing to see this idiosyncratic little brewery from Yorkshire show the London boys how it’s done.

If I’ve been slightly disparaging of Sam Smith’s beers in the past, this one has given me a newfound respect for the chaps from Tadcaster. This was a cracking beer in a cracking pub.

Facts and Figures

This is the second of three beers in The Book to hail from the Essex-based Pitfield Brewery, following their Shoreditch Stout, which I covered a few weeks ago.

This is another dark beer, this time an example of that most London of beer styles, and a confirmed favourite of your author: Porter. As with the Shoreditch Stout, the 1850 London Porter is entirely organic and vegan, should that be a factor in your beer selection process.

In a rather endearing Accidental Partridge turn of events, this one proudly bears the denomination “2010 Champion Bottled Beer of East Anglia”.

Pitfield 1850 London Porter is a deep reddish-brown, rather than truly black, and pours with an enormous sudsy head, despite having been sat perfectly still for several weeks. There’s a good, fresh hoppy whiff, backed up with some inviting toastier aromas, as befits a decent porter.

It soon becomes clear that I’ve overchilled this bottle, because at first the 1850 tastes what I can only describe as a little bit strange. There’s an odd sweetness in there, which perhaps originates with the cane sugar which is added to the brew, and there’s an overwhelming and not entirely pleasant bitterness which makes it hard to detect any other flavours.

However, this all changes as the beer warms a little and starts to near room temperature. The flavour really fills out and deepens, and becomes a complex combination of dried fruits, burnt toast and nutty black coffee notes. The difference is quite pronounced, so I’ve learned my lesson there.

And I’m glad, because I like this tiny brewery and didn’t want to post a bad review. I’m now particularly looking forward to the third and final Pitfield beer which I have to track down: a mighty 9.3% Imperial Stout. I’ve haven’t come across that one in London yet, so perhaps a trip to Essex is on the cards!

Facts and Figures

After a hard day patching up potholes on the information superhighway, there isn’t much that can beat putting your feet up with a good bottle of stout. Fortunately, there are an inordinate number of porters and stouts in The Book, so it’s probably time to open another of them.

This is our second beer from Oxfordshire’s Hook Norton Brewery, having tried their Old Hooky a few weeks ago. That was a good beer, but I couldn’t quite place what it was trying to be. There should be no such ambiguity with this, their 4.8% ABV, bottle-conditioned Double Stout.

What is slightly unclear is what the “double” in the name refers to. At just 4.8% we’re clearly not talking in the same terms as a Double IPA, which would typically be, well, double that strength. The bottle loosely implies that it might be to do with the fact that both black and brown malts are used, while The Book declares that it “recalls the period in the 18th and 19th centuries when porters and stouts were labelled X and XX”.

Perhaps we’re splitting hairs: what matters is whether it’s any good.

Hook Norton Double Stout looks much as a stout should, pouring such a dark brown that it appears black, and with a good frothy tan head. There’s a big, creamy malt nose with both toasty and floral notes that certainly seems promising.

There’s a slightly sharp, hoppy twang that’s front and centre, a nicely rounded body, and a subtly dry finish which manages to be satisfying without being in any way overpowering.

Overall the beer is quite fruity and—dare I say it—delicate for a stout, but served nicely chilled, it’s remarkably knock-backable. I suspect this might be a good stout for those who wouldn’t usually venture quite so far towards the dark side, as it’s a little less challenging than some stouts, whilst remaining a very good example of the style.

After the last couple of beers haven’t quite hit the spot for me, thankfully I’ve very much enjoyed this one. It certainly didn’t hang about long, and I’d happily opt for one of these again, especially if it popped up somewhere on draught.

Facts and Figures

This is the first beer I’ve ever tried from the Pitfield Brewery, and until today I knew very little about them. In fact, I still know very little other than they are a small, independent brewery with a complicated history.

Founded in the cellar of a specialist beer shop in Pitfield Street in Shoreditch, London, the brewery is now based on a farm in the Essex countryside, having changed location and ownership several times over its 30-year existence.

The core beers in Pitfield’s range are all certified organic and vegan, but are otherwise a fairly traditional-looking selection of pale ales, IPAs, porters and stouts. The naming of the Shoreditch Stout harks back to the brewery’s geographical roots, and conveniently I didn’t have to travel to Essex to find it: instead all that was required was a ten-minute stroll from the office to Old Street in—appropriately enough—Shoreditch.

Pitfield Shoreditch Stout pours a deep blackish brown colour, as befits a stout, and there’s a generous tan lacing and a promising smoky aroma. It’s remarkably malty and full of date, fig and other dried fruit flavours topped off with a dry, bitter and slightly salty finish.

This one is a little lighter-bodied than might be expected from a truly top-notch stout, but it’s far from watery. It’s very drinkable, and at a restrained 4.0% ABV it’s eminently sessionable.

I may be a little spoilt in the stout department, having easy access to the Kernel Brewery and their magnificent Export and Imperial Brown stouts, but I do feel the Shoreditch Stout struggles to really distinguish itself from many other half-decent stouts. That said, if the vegan/organic thing is up your street then this is probably one of your better options.

There are two more Pitfield beers in The Book: a London Porter and an Imperial Stout. I’ve yet to find a source for the latter, but I certainly look forward to tracking it down and seeing how it compares to this one.

Facts and Figures

Oh cripes, here we go again. From Wells & Young’s, the incorrigible beer-botherers who took a bitter and turned it into the lamentable Wells Banana Bread Beer comes another flavoured concoction. This time they’ve taken a stout and flavoured it with chocolate.

The thing is, there is actually a valid style of beer known as Chocolate Stout, but the term comes from the use of chocolate malts (named for the colour, more than anything). Young’s have apparently taken one of those and made it “double” by the addition of “natural chocolate flavour”, which doesn’t fill me with optimism.

Now, I do love a good stout. Enough to know that a good stout or porter should not really need any extra help to give out chocolatey, coffee notes. That this one does need a leg up has me fearing the worst.

Still, it’s in The Book, so I think we all know what comes next.

Sniffing the brew with some trepidation, I’m almost relieved that I’m not actually getting a lot of chocolate. In fact this smells a lot like a decent, normal stout with a faint whiff of something extra, yet subtle.

That carries through to the taste. Again, there are no strongly discernable chocolate notes beyond what might be expected from a stout. In fact Young’s Double Chocolate ticks all the stouty boxes: it’s full-bodied and smooth with a good long bitter finish. If anything the chocolate addition just helps to take away a little of the rougher smokiness that many stouts have.

To my surprise, the result is really quite a nice beer, and I soon find myself settling in and enjoying it.

This perhaps doesn’t attain the level of “pure luxury/pur luxe” that the label aspires to, and it’s not a patch on, say, the Guinness Foreign Extra we saw recently, or my current favourite, The Redchurch Brewery’s Hoxton Stout, but it’s really OK.

Whether by luck or by judgment, this time Wells & Young’s haven’t created a monster by ruining a perfectly good beer. This is, on its own merits, a perfectly good, enjoyable beer.

Facts and Figures