Posted on 08/09/22
The weather has turned and it looks like autumn has arrived, bringing with it a 16%(!) Neon Raptor imperial stout.
Tasting notes below – plus Beak’s new Witbeir, Polly’s hops and a host of Kirsch sours all get the same treatment.
These are the best new beers to bag up this week.
Anyone who’s been paying attention the last few years knows that when Neon Raptor drop a stout, it’s worth a look, and this time they’ve hit us with something truly outrageous.
Bear With Me 16% Coconut & Chocolate Imperial Stout is a tyrannosaurus monster that’s the biggest beer Neon Raptor have brewed to date, filled to the brim with dark chocolate and draped with mountains of muscovado sugar that goes on for days!
Anyone who’s not excited by this needs examining. Get it in for an occasion, get some mates together, and see what you make of something this gargantuan.
And as if one Neon Raptor collab wasn’t enough, we also have a cracking sour just in in Dyplomata Strawberry & Raspberry Cheesecake Pastry Sour, brewed with our new pals Maltgarden.
Fun fact; head brewer Łukasz ran off to brew this straight after his guided tasting at our new bar!
On top of all this, we also snagged Neon Raptor’s latest hazy pale Them Bones too…
That makes a trio not to be missed!
Boxcar make hoppy bangers; Beak make hoppy bangers. So when we saw them teaming up for a collaborative brew I thought I knew what was coming, but they’ve surprised us all at CM in the best way possible with Together Again Wit.
A ‘Late Summer Wit’, it combines traditional wheat beer flavours of orange and coriander with a super creamy body, and a fruity punch from the Loral and Amarillo hops.
Masterful stuff from two of our pals!
Polly’s are another bunch who fall firmly into the ‘hoppy banger’ category. Week in, week out they churn out hazy pales to die for, and Life In Paste IPA shows this off to perfection with a fruit bowl of flavours from a classic Citra, Mosaic and Azacca hop combo.
But nothing gets me more excited than when they go BIG, and Good Nature DIPA is BIG… even if it’s slightly more reserved by DIPA standards.
Weighing in at 7.8% with a tropical bitterness, it’s lighter on the booze but just as thick and juicy as their usual doubles.
This is what they do best – get this in!
It seems everyone has gone Kirsch-crazy this week as we’ve received THREE awesome sour cherry sours!
Brew York’s Kirsch Russell is already a firm favourite here at Craft Metropolis – a cherry pie pastry sour that tastes as much of pie as it does of cherry – so we were thrilled to see it joined by a ‘sequel’ beer, Kirsch Russell: Escape From LA.
The addition of maple syrup in the new beer takes it to a whole other level, making it a properly decadent and debaucherous dessert of a beer.
If you prefer your sours to stay true to their name then Polly’s Kirschentart is the way to go.
A return to their original sour recipe – but with a few tweaks for 2022 – it’s a straight up, classic gose packed with sour cherries and sea salt for a lip-smackingly tart and refreshing sour. Get in!
Next up, a beer with more importance than simple drinking.
Northern Monk created the recipe for their new collab with Action Against Hunger alongside Ukranian chef Olia Hercules to celebrate her country’s culinary culture, and came up with a As One Plum & Buckwheat Baltic Porter.
Malty and subtly fruity, all the profits from this are donated to Action Against Hunger to support their work in Ukraine. Masterful stuff.
And for the finisher… Northern Monk dropped the latest in their Fresh From The North series.
Fresh From The North 015 DIPA is a tropical delight using Pacifc Sunrise, Citra, Idaho-7 and El Dorado hops for deep melon and mango notes.
Back to the new beers, and it’s another shout-out for Boxcar, who’ve put a spin on their classic Dark Mild. A pale beer with which Boxcar claim to ‘focus on the malt profile rather than hops’, the Light Mild is a fruity, biscuity brew that’ll definitely appeal to the more traditionally inclined beer fans.
Beak might be best known for their pales but they’ve been slowly introducing sours to their repertoire, and Oodle is a Peach-Melba-inspired sour that proves they can put their mind to anything!
Love Peach Melba but aren’t keen on sours? Brew York hit the spot this week with their Dusty Springfield tribute, Son Of A Peacher Man Pale Ale. Enjoy.
As always, I hope you get to try some of these epic beers this week.
Cheers & thanks so much for your support!
Oli, Olly & Charlie
(The three people behind Craft Metropolis)
Step 1
We trawl the globe tasting great beer
