A stout, a welsh king, and a National Trust castle

An eclectic range of ales in today's blog...

Titanic Chocolate and Vanilla Stout, 4.5%

Titanic Brewery are a sizeable brewer based in Stoke and produce around 2.3m pints a year. This is their bottled Chocolate and Vanilla Stout, first up I'm a little perplexed about the clear bottle, there are very good reasons for brown bottles which are well documented, so this must be for marketing reasons. The ale itself is pitch black with a tan head, on the nose this is fantastic, rich indulgent chocolate with a lot of vanilla as well, on the palate it was basically bitter with a tiny hint of sweetness, disappointing. Titanic state that they are renowned for their stout on their website, and that may well be true but I fear that may be on keg, they need to sort their bottles out as this was disappointing. 5.5/10

Emma Says: ‘Chocolate orange smell, bitter strong coffee’

Celt Bleddyn 1075, 5.6%

The Celt Experience are an organic brewery based in Wales, a quick note for their bottle design, it just looks really classy and refined and it looks like a lot of thought has gone into their branding. Named after a powerful Welsh king from the 11^th century this is a suitably strong ale 5.6% in the bottle and 7.6% in cask. Pours a deep golden colour with aromas of grapefruit and pineapple, spice and fruit followed by a bitter citrus dry finish, really very nice indeed, would love to try the cask, 8.25/10.

Emma Says: ‘honey and apple blossom smell, bitter and soily, classic soil’

Westerham Scotney, 4.3%

Westerham Brewery are Kent based and produce an interesting array of ales, this one was originally exclusively produced for the National Trust using hops from their Scotney Castle property hence the name. Chestnut brown in colour, slight peach and caramel on the nose, smooth texture, spicy fruit with a medium bitter finish, a good one to finish a session with, 7.25/10.