The Empire Strikes Black (Lively Brew)

Here's a lovely little stout from Bunker friends Richard (of Llama Studio) and Geoff at Lively Brew.

Cap off, it's lively but not overfizzy. The pour is as dark as expected, and the thin brown head lasts down the glass.

The nose is complex and pleasant, chocolate malt tones to the fore. On the tongue it's a grippy little number, weighing in at 6% ABV, and infused with "cinnamon, cloves, allspice, vanilla and rum". With that amount of additions you might expect a bit of a car crash in the taste department, but all the various elements of the orchestra work well to produce a sumptuous tune - dark and homely on first sup and just the right amount of bittering in the length. The carbonation is soft and completely suitable.

Richard and Geoff say it's the best thing they've done so far, and having tasted a few other examples - all good - I'd have to agree. As home brewers, they are consistent and improving all the time, and none of the titles I've tried have had any of the tell-tale mulchiness, or 'cigar' notes that can easily be contracted from home kits. Couple this with excellent branding and they could go to local scale quite easily with a very drinkable product like this.

7/10 - A fine, fine homebrew. Lovely complexity and spicy quality.

- The Broadside

Dark Side (Bath Ales)

This is an outstanding 4% ABV stout, increasingly cropping up on pub taps as a default dark, most recently so by the Loungers group.

In the bottle it pours cleanly and with a fine standard head. The notes on the nose are beautiful roasted barley, literally vacuuming the senses towards taking a sip.

The sup is smooth and light. This is probably as near as you can get to a wholly session stout, familiar cloying flavours of a darker beer blended up into a dance of pitchy delicacy. Even those who don't normally drink darker beer should find they can sail through this one without too much fuss, and it could easily act as a gateway to a dark beer prevalence.

8/10 - Wonderfully crafted session stout, skilfully executed.

The Broadside

Guinness Foreign Extra (Guinness)

7.5%ABV Guinness, my my.

Inky as a school blackboard's heart and chocked forth with hazy roast and dark fruit aroma, this promises much. The taste is a pitchy swirl of coffee and bitter chocolate . It's texture is a sliding silky wonder, and although creamy, doesn't insulate the tongue against the orchestra of flavours on offer. Butterscotch and a mild pleasant ash rise and fall, and the notes are complex and mature.

The length is bitter with a fading smoke, like the final railway scene of 40's film where love doesn't win the day. Wonderful beer and surely the best in the Guinness range.

9/10 - Outstanding stout from those who should know. Smoky and authentic.

- The Broadside

Black Chocolate Stout (Brooklyn)

The immaculate black and gold label hints at the quality within.

It pours thick and black, with roasted chocolate notes powering above wisps of oak and coffee. The head is a light tan, not that you can see that from my rather over (and under) exposed photo.

This is 10% ABV, serious stuff. The impact of the sup is heady, sweet and of course very chocolatey, but not sickly. The consistency is a proper motor oil stout, and it comes across as an after-dinner delight for the discerning.

The texture is like a satin asp sliding over velvet. A mildly buttery midsection gives way to a rising coffee bittering which never peaks but balances out the drink immaculately.

Utterly luxurious, comprehensively delicious.

9/10 - Remarkable strong after dinner stout, blackly gorgeous.

- The Broadside

Black Adder (Mauldons)

Mauldon's is a fine Suffolk brewery based in Sudbury. They offer five standard ales and Black Adder is their porter.

It's absolutely delicious too. Pouring extremely dark with a thin, dissipating beige head, the nose is a roasted cacophony of chocolate and nutty intrigue.

The sup is gentle and rich, a swirl of dark malts colliding to conjure up a deep, woody coffee-cocoa taste that commences sweet and segues into a sophisticated bittered tail.

At 5.3% abv, Black Adder has a decent chassis to carry a beautiful, ultimately bitter taste voyage. It really is a fine example of stout at it's best from the heart of East Anglia.

9/10 - Sumptuous and smooth, a Rolls Royce stout singing with quality.

- The Broadside

Dry Stout (Stringers)

This is a delicious Cumbrian treat, from a brewery that is "100% renewably powered".

Stringers do five regular ales and two seasonals. This stout, along with their Dark Country beer, is vegan-suitable.

It pours dense and dark - proper dark like those regions Joseph Conrad wrote about. The head is rusty and enduring, and the nose is a sumptuous casserole of roasted and wispy chocolate aromas.

The sup is creamy and full of smoke, an extremely alluring old-school collision of proper industrial stout tastes. It's wonderfully smooth, but lively in all the correct ways, heady chocolate malt carried aloft on a very appropriate 4.5%abv chassis.

The finish tails to dry, but perhaps not the dominant dehydration suggested in the title. It's evaporative in the right way, leaving dark flavours and fond memories on the tongue.

8/10 - Wonderful northern stout - buy without hesitation, enjoy without regret.

- The Broadside

A big thanks to Stringers for sending this to review.

You can buy their beers here at mybrewerytap or alesbymail

Baltic Night (Compass)

Pours smooth with an inky pitch soul, there's enough black depth here to interest Stephen Hawking.

A suggestion of a rusty head soon evaporates to nought, leaving a few roast and barley tones in the breeze and a considerable air of threat. Also, unusually for a stout a clutch of hops dances on the nose.

The sip is quite extraordinary. Typically with the stouts we've had, hearty big dark flavours come along all together, and mosh for attention in robust tapestries of taste. Baltic Night though is an altogether more subtle affair. It's roasty and bitter, but smooooth. Coffee tones slide in like an advanced driver overtaking on a rainy night, before a simple yet very effective dry chocolatey finish closes the deal.

It's altogether the most cohesive and well planned stout I think I've had. Everything here fits like gears in a swiss clock. There's very little of the classic stout 'munch', and more a craft-beer style invitation to sip again. This is dark beer by design.

This 4.8%abv Compass ale has won the odd award and rightly so. It's delightful to sip by itself, but I'd suggest this is one stout very suitable for accompanying rich food, without bulldozering the palate.

8/10 - Delicate and designed to delight, this is a Bang and Olufsen stout, brewed with care and intention.

Riptide (Brewdog) 8%Abv

Pours as black peat, with an exceptional head of coffee foam. Smells of ripe summer fruits, mixed berries and blackcurrants.

The initial taste is dominated by an exceptionally powerful and unexpected lingering sweetness. It's only on the second sip one can delve deeper into this dark delight. It's a whirlwind of coffee, hints of chocolate, but finishing with an asserted ripe fruity sweetness that leaves a taste buds twanging like a banjo string.

The hops are the final lingering presence of this beer, a flash of herbal bitterness. A wiser tweeter than me said of a review of Riptide "Riptide review in the style of @thebeerbunker: When you took the back off your Ferguson cassette recorder and it never worked again? That." Quite.

I kind of like the riptide analogy, like being dragged backwards out to sea past a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds to be met by a sweet mermaid who smiles and pushes you back to shore for another sip of stout.

7/10 An epic fruity and kaleidoscopic stout.

Guinness Original (Guinness)

The Bunker takes on one of the leviathan products of the century. I grew up (well, from my teens) with guinness on draught - although don't touch it these days. So how does this 4.2%abv classic shape up?

It pours a deep, dark brown rather than pitch black. The nose is a little odd for a stout, a sort of metallic hobnob aroma. It's not unpleasant and the coffee coloured head foams away for a bit.

The texture is thin and prickly rather than fizzy, rather watery compared with some of the other fine stouts on these pages. First taste is a clatter of smoky aluminium, with a not displeasing soil over-note. The sup tends to veer to dry in the tail, with mild hop bittering and a little acidity.

It's not unpleasant and I found myself galloping through it quite briskly. The problem is it's lacking depth, and for me a stout should be rich and, well, stout in character, which this doesn't achieve.

Between this and mainstream lagers I'd go for this. Between this and most other offerings in these pages I'd opt for the heartier stuff.

6/10 - Beats it's draught brother easily but too thin and unexciting for the stout class.

- The Broadside

London Stout (Meantime)

Late Sunday afternoon and time for something stout.

Meantime of London have a good reputation for interesting brewing, with coffee and chocolate ales and some organic products on general sale.

Their standard London Stout pours very dark brown, as close as brown gets to black, and is impenetrable to light. The head is a wispy and a pleasing smoky chocolate rises to the nose.

First impression is a very drinkable session stout. On the whole stout drinkers tend to be a looking for a nice bit of munch on their pint but this is actually rather thin. Some might say watery, but a nice bunch of chocolate, roast and smoke tastes rise on the tongue, which seem to suit the consistency well.

Dark fruits continue through the sip and a woody, smoked hint of bitterness finishes it very neatly.

Compared to some of the wilder power-strength stouts out there, this may seem a trifle dull, but at 4.5%abv this is that rare thing, a very drinkable session stout. For those who like their ale dark, this is a fine precursor to an evening and certainly knocks the likes of bottled Guinness into a cocked black hat.

7/10 - A gentle, smoky session stout, capable and clean.

- The Broadside

AB04 (Brewdog)

As much a crime re-enactment as a tasting session. The combined Bunker hierarchy massed to delve into this Brewdog prototype.

Initial impressions - Pours as a galaxy-dark stout with a blood red edge ring, like the telling mark round the plughole when the detectives arrive. This is a Hallowe'en haemoglobin porter. The scent is red wine tannin, laced with dark chocolate and iron.

The powerful sweet opening is swiftly followed by a potent burnt liquorice taste. After that a cooking chocolate bitterness rises, not reminiscent of hops, more of a pouch of tobacco being rolled by the old sailor in the corner who won’t take his one eye off you. The alcohol is mighty and assertive, not many will come your way of an evening without requiring a transfusion.

The finish lingers, like a sociopath re-tracing the fact, a swathe of ripe blackberries drifting mashed into a burnt oven roasted chilli. Powerful fortified wine flavours linger in the memory, no heat as such but stiff persistent echoes of chilli.

8/10 It’s a fortified, complex beer and undoubtedly Brewdog. The frontier has been pushed again with this ale, and bravo for that.

Thanks to Brewdog for providing, i suggest you read their blog and await details of AB:04's release.