Black Lightning
Hambleton Ales

500ml bottle bought from Clarkes of Whitby...

Poured a deep dark burgundy red / brown... Creamy tan head poured thick and foamy then faded to thin layer... very little lacing..

Aroma - Strong coffee notes, roasted malts, slight smokiness, dark chocolate, light hop bitterness, leathery, woody, slight dustiness, peppery, aniseed hints...

Taste - Roasted malts, bitter chocolate, slight aniseed notes, coffee, dark fruits (light blackcurrents, prunes), faint nuttiness, earthy, some creaminess / milkiness, biscuity hints...

Feel - Quite smooth and creamy... Full body. Pretty drinkable...

Overall - An excellent example of a porter.... Very drinkable... Recommended !!

500 ml bottle, bought in Scarborough. ABV is 6.5%. Black coloured beer, ruby in the highlights. Large to moderate tan head. Pleasant roasty and vinous aroma with notes of chocolate, coffee and claret. Full and rich moutheel. The flavour abounds with chocolate, also coffee and roasted barley. Excellent beer.

500ml long-neck brown bottle, filtered (and perhaps pasteurised). BB 07/2007, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: extremely dark brown in colour, with some caramely red glows against light; the tan head comes creamy but restrained in thickness, with superb retention on top of relatively quiet carbonation.
S: lightly sour-bitter malts abound, like the mixture of crystal-, chocolate- and pale-malts; a soothing nutty cream, med-roast coffee-beans' roastiness and a touch of lightly aromatic Fuggles sustain firmly at the back. Overall, the aroma is pretty subtle and well-blended, rather than exciting or complex.
T: the taste is more bitter than the nose suggests, right from the very beginning... the bitter dark malts lead quickly towards deepening roastiness of roasted barleys and really chewy aftertaste as of 90% bitter chocolates (w/o the sour edge), crushed black malts and nutshells... then vividly herbal hop dryish bitterness manifests itself in the long aftertaste, hand in hand with a faintly fruit-zesty hint of hops and sour-sweet dried berry-fruits to round off the bitter episode...
M&D: very smooth, almost velvety, on the texture, while the body is full but not heavy at all, leaving little trace of any alc. for a 6.5%abv. dark beer. The finishing chewy mouthfeel gives some welcome sparkle to the overall smooth palate. If judging simply by its recipe, then this should be a Porter-style beer, as it uses pale, crystal, chocolate malts, and roasted barley; but the overall performance, for its impressive depth of bitterness right from the start, makes it a cross b/w Oatmean Stout, Irish Dry Stout, and English Porter. This beer is as "quiet" as it can be--aroma, taste, bitterness, and texture... It takes patience to really appreciate its goodness, I think, but I somehow fell for it right in two sips--I wonder what the cask version could make me do?! Recommended.