Skip to main content

Beer Advent Calendar Window Thirteen - Naughty & Nice


As I crawled through a packed Calls Landing in Leeds in May this year, I never knew that a forced choice of beer would lead to something remarkable. A Vocation Brewery Pride & Joy was in my glass as I surveyed and judged the packed bar, but my eye kept returning to my glass and thinking "Who the heck are this brewery?" 

I was soon to learn of the Hebden Bridge based brewery and their founder, John Hickling, formerly of Blue Monkey brewery, We all were. As those well branded bottles started to pop up everywhere, they soon turned to stunning cans and some of 2015's most memorable beers. 

In the past week, they've had many mentions in "Golden Pints" posts - and feature in mine too (coming this week.) 

With that I am pleased to see them enter my Beer Advent Calendar behind Window Thirteen with their Naughty & Nice. The can was kindly provided by Rachel (pictured) and had to be drunk in the pub itself so that this particular window could be completed. 

Naughty & Nice is a Chocolate Stout brewed just for the season in collaboration with creative design studio Robot Food. There were a limited number of 750ml bottles released to celebrate this beer, but thankfully some made it into those wonderfully designed cans too. 

Vocation Brewery - Naughty & Nice A Strong Chocolate Stout 7.5% 


It's going to be difficult to say much here that isn't the word chocolate. This pours a luscious dark chocolate colour with white chocolate head. There's big flavours on the nose of dark chocolate, woodland scrubs, dark chocolate, cacao nibs, dark chocolate, cooked winter berries and dark chocolate. I'll try to describe the taste in as simple terms as I can muster: 

Willy Wonka was looking at his chocolate river and was tired of its milky flavouring. He liked good, strong cocoaed chocolate. He liked it robust, flavoursome and dark. So the lactose addition was taken away from the river and it ran a pure dark chocolate colour. It oozed and boozed through the factory, picking up honey, tannins and maple syrup along the way, to provide a little difference, but mostly the river retained this powerful chocolate flavour, that flowed best at the most indulgent times of year. Willy Wonka dipped a can into the river, retrieved some of its liquid and took a sip. It was long lasting, mouth-filling but tasty. Above its subtle hints of Eccles Cakes and evergreen leaves, it was definitely chocolate; the darkest and richest chocolate you can imagine  He knew drinking from the river was Naughty but the drink was so Nice. "That is what we shall call it," he thought. 

That is the best way I can describes Naughty & Nice to you, without repeating the word "chocolate" over and over. 

Mince Pie Rating: N/A - damn pubs and there lack of mince pies at this time of year 

Best Paired with: Augustus Gloop. 

Chocolate 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"They Had Their Issues, So..."

      There’s a set of garages to rent as storage units near my workplace. One of them is taken by a local florist that uses it to store flower arrangements for various events, that are more often than not funerals.   As such, at least once a week at 8am I will pass a car being loaded up with flowers arranged into heart shaped patterns or the letters M U M. It is a grounding reminder that, as I mentally grumble my way through the upcoming arbitrary grievances of my ordinary working day, a group of family and friends locally is going through the hardest time. It provides much needed perspective on days when I could do with being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for.   These little moments explain to me why it is possible for us to share a communal loss when a celebrity passes away. Grief is often a personal and lonely experience, shared between a minority of people in your life. When a co-worker loses a relative or friend, it has little affect on me, bar signing of
Post a Comment
Read more

LIVERPOOL - the City that Craft Beer Forgot Part II (and found...)

After visiting Liverpool, one of my favourite cities, in February this year, and not impressing people with my rather hasty but honest verdict on the city’s lack of craft beer, I jumped at the chance to return last week and hoped to come out with a more attractive judgement. A couple of friends and I visited on a day out, with neither of them having been drinking in the city before. It was left to me – or rather, I volunteered – to plan the day’s itinerary and places to visit. I had a couple of new or unvisited places in mind myself, but knew it would be unfair to miss out on some of the city’s famous gems. With around 10-12 hours in which to fit in an entire city, I opted to concentrate on the famous Georgian Quarter and see if we had time for the Dale Street end later on.    We planned to arrive in the city for around 11a.m. just in time to walk up Mount Pleasant to the new-on-me, though I believe it has been opened three years, Clove Hitch on Hope Street for breakfast.
Post a Comment
Read more

Advent Calendar Window 14 - La Goudale de Noel

"Keep my distance, but you still catch my eye, Tell me, baby, do you recognise me? Well, it’s been a year, that doesn’t surprise me" La Goudale is an interesting French enigma. I searched for this under the label Brassee a L’Ancienne believing this to be the name of the brewery. After some fruitless searching, I learnt that this is not the name of a brewer, but rather a French saying that, roughly translated, means “Brewed in a Traditional way.” La Goudale is actually from the Brewery Gayant based in Douai, North-east France that aleso houses other well-nown brews such as Amadeus and La Biere Du Demon.  The real reason I find them an enigma though is for the discovery the other day that two of their beers – the Abbey and Wit – are sold in Aldi. They are in 750ml bottles and are £2.49 and £1.99 respectively. Housed here, the repugnant snob in me thinks they look cheap and unappetising on these shelves and managed to slightly put me off my La Goudale
Post a Comment
Read more