Pours a clear brown colour with a small frothy beige head. The aroma is malty, caramel and toffee with some vanilla, fruit and light coffee notes. A light sweet taste, light roasted malt, sweet mocha coffee, fruit and light vanilla flavours with a twiggy hop bitterness.

At last I meet this ur-classic English strong ale: Black Sheep's Riggwelter, the name apparently referring to a sheep - a historically important species of livestock in Yorkshire - which has rolled onto its back and cannot get up anymore, a somewhat tragicomic image still depicted on the front label and no doubt hinting at the potential consequences of having too many of these in a row. Thick and dense, very frothy and pillowy, irregularly but tightly lacing, pale greyish beige, extremely stable head on a crystal clear (obviously filtered), deep and dark ruddy-bronze beer with copper red glow and fine, visible sparkling throughout. Aroma of wet toast, warm wholemeal bread, clear pasteurization (cooked cloth), burnt raisins, dried peppermint leaf, tea, clove, dried plantain slices, crushed pecan nuts, hints of glazed beetroot, coffee grounds, butter, walnut skin, old liquorice candy, dried tarragon. Lively carbonated in the onset, very minerally, almost sparkling water-like, with restrained fruity notes (more from malt than from yeast effects in this case), vague touches of pear, plantain and dried apricot but remaining very low in sweetness; very slick, smooth but full body, oily, with layers of bread-crusty, hard-caramelly and (more than anything) toast-like malts effortlessly gliding over the tongue. The toasted bitter factor proves especially prominent, seemingly about to take a bitter-chocolatey direction at first, but never actually going there and instead developing something lightly coffee-like; this malt bitterness gets enhanced by the hops of course, which in the end add a significant layer of herbal, leafy, or (as the late Michael Jackson put it) indeed 'minty' bitterness on top of the toasted malts. The bitter leaf hop effect matches very well with the warming toasted bitterness from the malts, a simple but very effective combo, actually prolonging each other in the finish. Ends dry, but still a tad juicy and 'fruity' (even vaguely caramel-sweet) too, due to the sheer maltiness of this beer. It may be hard for an average Belgian to associate the word 'strong' with a beer still comfortably below 6% ABV - but I tirelessly and painstakingly familiarised myself with the other great historic beer cultures of Europe back in the day, and for me it is self-evident to switch off that 'I grew up in Belgian beer'-button in my head when confronted with an English classic like this; surely it is a potent beer enough, the English equivalent of a Belgian dubbel so to speak, but one I could chug down a lot more of than this 50 cc bottle. Too bad for the filtering and pasteurisation, adding this layer of industrialism over a deeply and beautifully malty-hoppy brew - I really need to find a 'real ale' version of this, if such a thing exists in the first place... Anyway, like a strong nothern brown ale of sorts, a classic in its own right, glad I finally got to know it - and I sure enjoyed it. Cheers!

[Cask at the Monks Retreat, Reading.] An amber pour with a tight cream coloured head; malty aroma; biscuity malt taste; and a sharp citrusy finish. A tasty bitter.

Drukket på Bergstua. Svart. Middels høyt mokkafarget skum som daler sakte og etterlater litt lacing. Sjokoladearoma. Myk munnfølelse. Smaken mest lakris. Hint av røstet malt. Kanskje en anelse av fjøs her men den ødelegger ikke inntrykket av et bra øl - spesielt ut fra styrken. Tørr avslutning. Vanilje?

Cask @ JDW Shrewsbury Hotel. Clear amber appearance, off-white head. OK Amber bitter. Moderate toffee sweetness, gentle bitter close.

Hand-pulled half-pint in The Shrewsbury Hotel (a Shrewsbury Wetherspoons) on 25th October 2021. Clean amber/brown body, decent off-white head. Malty front to both the nose and taste, caramel sweetness with a trace of fruitiness and a mild bitterness from the hop content.

Appearance: Medium golden, clear. Big, fizzy off-white head. Aroma: Sweet fruits, sweets/candy, pineapple. Taste: Sweet fruits, pineapple. Sweets/Candy. Some lactose. Not very balanced. Bought: amstein.ch, 330 ml can, CHF 2.83 Info: 24/10-2021, BB: 30/11-2021

Cask handpull at The County Hotel JDW Ashford. Reddish brown colour thin off white head. Some fruity malt. Some biscuit. not much bitterness. A best bitter if anything. OK touch of toffee maybe

Cask at Moon under Water, Wolverhampton. Pours “bitter brown” with a small white head and good lacing. Aroma is just vaguely malty. In the mouth it has a creamy texture and flavour of floral hops on a caramel base. Varies between slightly sweet and slightly bitter. Pretty nondescript really.