Spire Sgt Pepper Stout

Cask, Hinckley Fest 08. Dark brown, near black with a beige head. Aromas are coffee and earthy roast malts with floral notes and lots of grapefruit. Smoky and woody with an almost rauchbier smokiness. Flavours are roast malts with floral notes. Sharp grapefruit bitterness. Some berry fruit. Peppery at the back of the throat. Very peppery on the finish.

Opening beer at the Inaugural Knickersby Fest 08. Pitch with tan halo. Bovril snout with nutty vegetal notes, freshly sliced red chilli, liquorice, more Bovril, roast. Sprinkle of pepper burn, big liquorice and Marmite saltiness approaching the Baltic, peppercorn sauce, plenty of roasted malt. Just the right balance of pepper and roast without descending into novelty beer territory.Lingers pleasantly with smoke. Strange and tasty.

Cask at peterborough beer fest. Alround rating: This was apparently like a super peppered up vertion of the normal. Aroma is meaty and super peppery, like roasted malts cooked with just pepper, floural hops try to sneak in, but its all about the insane pepper character.

Cask@1st Hinckley Beer Festival, 2008. Black beer with a light head. The aroma is oatmeal and slightly pork sausage like/sausage role. The flavour is bitter, spiced , burn’t and peppery which makes the drink hot to the back of the throat. Overall a weird beer.

Cask/gravity at Peterborough beer festival 2008. A big liquorice nose, with burnt sugar and pepper on the tongue - the burnt and sweet tastes somehow balancing each other very well. Then there’s a bitter and burnt finish with that touch of pepper coming through again. Lovely!