Meantime - London Stout

No photos of this one, I'm afraid. However, it was black and that's about all there was to the appearance. I served this at room temperature and was quite impressed at first, with it going down easily. I sometimes struggle with stouts and porters but this was okay. For the first half.

As I got into the second half of the drink, a funny taste started coming through. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what it was, suffice to say that if this had been my own homebrew, I'd be talking about off-tastes. 

Meantime's IPA was okay, if not my favourite and I'm afraid I was similarly indifferent about London Stout too.

Meantime IPA

On the suggestion of Nelly (before he'd reviewed it), I'd bought this bottle and it had sat on my shelf for a few weeks till I found the right point to open it.

Well, I've had a long hard day today, and this had migrated to the fridge, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Sadly not pictured above is the top, which is a champagne-style cork with a wire cage. It is, quite frankly, a gimmick, and probably contributes to the price - and when I opened it the beer spurted out like champagne all over the sodding worktop. Now, it's pretty gassy as it is, but this was just annoying. With the usual caveat that I know sod all about beer (but I know what I like, etc), was it that the poncey lid was making it extra fizzy?

Anyway, the beer itself - really bloody good. Hoppy, fizzy, immensely tasty; not the sharp, overpowering nose of a Jaipur, but fruity - orange, marmalade, freshly-cut grass, and a lightly bitter, caramel aftertaste. Extremely quaffable, which I guess is why it comes in a big sodding bottle; the plus side of this being that I could have a pint and Mrs W could have her fair share without nicking mine (her review - "yeah, I liked it" - first day back at work and all that, she's a bit tired, bless her).

So - no Jaipur, but pretty darn good.

Meantime - India Pale Ale

A family camping trip is on the cards in a few weeks so I put the tent up in the garden as a trial run, to make sure it was working ok. One slip of the tongue later and I had somehow agreed to spend the night in the tent with my three-year old son. Every other bloke in the land would be watching the first Match of the Day of the new season and I had volunteered to spend the evening sitting in the garden on a beanbag.

As I couldn't sleep in the house, I figured eight Ace might be an appropriate choice of drink but Waitrose don't sell it so I opted for one Meantime IPA instead.

This comes in a big 750ml bottle with a cork/wire cage. It was well over five quid and the price nearly put me off, which doesn't happen very often. It was quite highly carbonated, which I think it would have to be, as the bigger bottle will spend more time sat open. The first pour resulted in a big rolling head rising up, which I had to allow to recede before topping up. I still don't know for sure how I feel about the bigger bottle and the cork stopper. I really wanted it to not be a gimmick but I can't think of any compelling reason for it and sadly suspect it might be.

I had high hopes for this IPA but my first impression of the nose was that it was just too malt-forward for my liking. It's a very strong beer at 7.4% and although it was extremely drinkable, I just constantly wanted there to be more hops. I suspect this is a very traditional IPA though, and true to type in a way that other IPAs perhaps aren't.

This is a very fine beer indeed, just not quite what I was expecting and not to my taste. I could happily have another bottle at some point in the future but there are just so many other beers I want to try first.