Lymestone Stone Dead

Brewed by Lymestone
Style: Foreign Stout
Stone, England

Serve in English pint, Snifter, Tulip

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500ml bottle from The Wine cellars, Lutterworth. Filthy, glossy obsidian pour with a shrinking tan cap. Huge imperial aroma of juicy raisin, fudge, bitter chocolate, sherry, strudel and blackberry. Raisiny bitter chocolate flavour deep with bitterness; then, a sweet fruity waft of strudel and ripe dark berries takes over. Dried black grape and liquorice hints. Punchy bitter finish swirled with sherry and port sweetness. Deep stout way deeper than all that £10-a-thimble bourbon barrel aged crap. Very good indeed.

There is no subtlety with this imperial stout, it’s midnight black colour combined with the strong malt and hop flavours create an intense rush in the mouth. It has only a small tan head and is quite calm but don’t let that fool you, the richness of the roasted malts, coffee and toast combined with the 6.66% strength make for a volatile mixture, but it is a good balance. Initially there is only malts and coffee but this develops into hoppiness and then leaves a sleek bitter taste. This is not a beer for the faint hearted, but it is ideal for the dark beer lover, the devils own work!!

500ml bottle. Poured with minimal head. A sweet stout with taste including leather. Dry finish. Overall: well-crafted stout.

Mildly silly label and a 6.66 ABV had me somewhat unconvinced; the packaging speaks more of a novelty than a good beer, but I decided to have a go, and I’m glad I did. I gather this is an annual beer, but I’d not seen it before this year. The beer comes in pint bottles, and is not bottle conditioned. Pours clear but very dark. Holding the pint glass up to the light afterwards was an exercise in futility, and I had to grab a whisky glass to have a better look at it. The beer is dark brown to black, and pours with an initially lovely dark head. The head goes craggy and dissipates quite quickly, and after a minute or two you have a light creamy head not entirely dissimilar from the crema on a good espresso. The beer has a thinner mouthfeel and more hoppiness than I’d have expected from something calling itself an imperial stout. There’s a good flavour of some heavily roasted malts with coffee and dark chocolate. The beer has an overall dry character. The beer came in a 500ml bottle, and as mentioned, 6.66% abv.

500ml bottle with a best before date of May 2013: poured into an Abbot Ale glass tankard on 7th Nov 2012. Really, really black, we are talking jet here: the full, rich head was a dark tanned foam blanket that trapped the beer in the glass. The aroma is one of burnt toast and over roasted malt loaves, both of which have been dipped in strong black coffee. The taste is full on roasted malts: semi-bitter and sharp but with a smooth body feel and some dark chocolate notes to calm everything down a little. Most enjoyable, this brewery is growing on me.

Bottle; jet black, thin brown head; aroma of coffee and chocolate orange; flavours of roast malts and coffee; peppery spices in the dry finish; what it lacked in terms of the anticipated complexity of flavour it partially made up in being far more easy to drink than expected; merely good, but expected more.

Bottle , Ship & Mitre bottle shop, West Kirby. Black pour with a fading light brown head. Sweetish nose of dark choc alongside some roast. Fullish mouthfeel, leading to a flavour of dark fruits, burnt malts and a little smoke. Some bitterness towards the finish. Nice one.

Roasty aroma with hints or dark fruit and caramel. Black in colour with a red tint, craggy tawny head. Roasty, lightly burnt flavours predominate at first but are backed by enough sweetness to balance the beer. Solid palate, silkly, almost oily. This is a really good beer, if you get a chance give it a go

Bottle. Black with a firm beige head. Aromas are rich roast coffee with earthy peat and blackberry. Nutty dark chocolate with soy and pithy grapefruit. Smoky with liquorice and medicinal notes. Flavours are fruity dark cherries with nutty alcohol and rich coffee. Dark chocolate and grapefruit bitterness with resinous lemon. Liquorice with lots of spices. Peppery and dry on the finish. Lymestone brew some good beers.

Bottle from the Best Western Moat House Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent, back in February but only just getting around to drinking it now. Imposing looking headless, cola coloured brew. Aroma mild, grassy, slightly medicinal - not like I expected. I don’t like overly strong coffee tastes - thankfully this is just the right amount for my palate; yes, there’s coffee there but it’s mixed with dark fruits, cocoa and licquorice. Well balanced bitterness which treads the right line between dry and sweet. Long finish but without being so bitter as to ruin the palate. A shame this is only a seasonal beer.