(collab with) Cornelius .

So we finally managed it: it took us over a decade but we actually got around to brewing something up at the shop. This is all thanks to Paul at Campervan who, over a few drinks at Christmas, drunkenly offered us his expertise and the use of his Braumeister kit. Within moments, Dom jumped on the idea, seeing it as the perfect opportunity to try out his pet project, namely trying to convince the last few oenophile holdouts of the wonders of beer.
I wanted top do a stout (because we knew that Paul could brew a damn fine stout) and Dom wanted to do something “winey” so we quickly gravitated towards an “augmented” stout. There are plenty of fruit stouts on the market, but we are still unaware of any that go the whole hog of chucking a bottle of Amarone into the wort. Realistically a bottle of wine would be lost in 50 litres of beer, so we threw a few baskets of dried fruit in there as well (cherries, figs, raisins and more cherries)
To keep things legal and above board, Paul took the resulting wort away to ferment at Campervan HQ and now, five weeks down the line, the beer hits our shelves and we are are VERY happy with the results.
It’s got a bit more colour than most stouts:- think deep burnished mahogany, the nose is pretty awesome though: It smells really Christmassy. The dried fruit is really assertive. The palate is medium-to-full bodied with a fair bit of sweetness and a lovely, creamy texture. It also has some bitterness, but it’s still easy and gluggable. There is a definite vinous, balsamic quality to the finish. Crucially, we kept it to a modest (dare I say it- sessionable) 5.5% abv.