Managed to get my hands on a bottle of Gadds’ Black Pearl Oyster Stout from BeerMerchants. According to Gadd’s, it is brewed with Pale malt, and roasted barley, as well as Fuggle hops to provide some bitterness. It comes in at 6.2%, which is a tad heavy for a style that rarely tops 5%.
Pours with an almost pitch black body, and a small creamy tan head. The aromas are big, roasted malts, milk chocolate, espresso, burnt raisins, and a hint of blackcurrant. The taste is heavy on the malts, with hints of chocolate. There is bitter black coffee that flairs up midway through, and lasts until the end, providing a lingering aftertaste with a slight trace of tobacco alongside bitter dark chocolate. It feels full and velvety in the mouth, and offers that mild warming feel of alcohol towards the end.
The flavours are interesting and sublimely well balanced. Certainly lives up to the gradually growing hype surrounding this brewery. Now my eyes turn to their Dogbolter Porter, if their stouts are this good, I’m sure their porter will be something pretty special.
i too got some of the gadds beers from beermerchants, the only one i have had so far is the No 3, loved it, can't wait to get round to trying the rest.
ReplyDeleteit's nice to see the smaller breweries becoming more widely avaible via places like beermerchants and getting the praise they deserve.
Think I'll probably get round to trying the NO.3 soon, just read your review and it sounds good.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree about smaller breweries. That's why the Americans are producing so much good stuff, they respect their smaller breweries and brewpubs, and distribute well.
Love this beer, it's great. Gadds deserve to be up there with the big name micro breweries in this country, they make some fantastic stuff (and as I live in Kent I get to drink it quite a lot!).
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