Draft. Golden beer with a whitish head. Light malt and light mineral aroma. Mineral and light grass flavor. Medium bodied. Mineral and light grass linger.

Draft. Golden beer with a cream head. Light tropical fruit aroma. Tropical fruit and lemony citrus flavor. Medium bodied. Tropical fruit and lemony citrus linger.

Draft. Brown beer with a tan head. Boozy barrel aroma. Caramel and alcohol barrel flavor. Medium bodied. Caramel and alcohol barrel notes linger. A bit messy from the blend.

Pastry stout, or in this case dubbed a porter, brewed with malted barley, oats and rye, flavoured with cocoa nibs as well as lactose, as befits anything 'pastry'. From a trusted source - among England's finest - so this cannot go wrong... Thick and dense, pale mocha-beige, creamy, pillowy head slowly receding whilst leaving shreddy lacing over a black robe with hazy burgundy edges. Relatively restrained (for style) aroma of dry caramel, dark rye bread, toasted beech nuts, vague salmiak, dried out oatmeal cookies or even some granola rather than marshmallows - though the modern version of those does subtly pierce through here and there so I get the point, light vanilla, ovomaltin, cold cappuccino, touch of artisanal cola (not coming close to the original), fig compote, fried autumn apples, Conference pear, ferrous spring water. Fruity onset in a 'darkish' way, hinting at fig, ripe pear and mangosteen - but I get no guava; sweet alright, but more from the added lactose than from residual sugars, which are in fact quite limited here. The lactose, as usual, does bring about a creamy mouthfeel, very round and soft, as a marshmallow melting on your tongue indeed - but I get very little actual marshmallow flavour and I am not sure if that is a bad thing or not... Vague impressions of cola, marmite and blackberry jam linger over a caramelly, brown-bready and eventually dark-chocolatey base, picking up cappuccino-like roasted bitterness in its tail but no sooner and never in a truly 'mouth-filling' way - which in the case of this very accomplished brewery obviously means they want to stick to the original porter experience without 'descending' into stout. Instead, the lactose accentuates the sweetening effect of both the caramelly malts and the cocoa nibs, keeping things firmly in sweet territory itself as well, though not in a sticky, annoying way. Blackberry-ish sourishness helps to counter that, as does a deeply buried leafy hop bitter element and that 'late' roasted bitterness I mentioned above. In that sense, I find this pastry porter to be cleverly structured and highly drinkable - Siren has done more impressive things in all those years for sure, but this is everything you would expect from the premises given on the label, in a very smooth way (oats help too there), without exaggerating the intended marshmallow sweetness. Balance really is key here: you expect cloyingly sweet and that is what you get, in the end, but nowhere over the top like in so many other pastry stouts and pastry porters. Lovely beer from one of the - admittedly many - founding fathers of postmodern English craft brewing.

Can from Asda. Hazy deep amber body with a thick beige head. No visible carbonation. Faint lacing. Aroma of caramel and strawberry syrup. Flavour of berries and toffee. Medium body with a smooth texture. Soft fizz. A sweet, malty red IPA. This is nice but just lacking a little in the hop department.