Off to Cornwall to drink some more

like this.

Atlantic Discovery Smooth Blonde Beer with Elderflower & Lemon.

We are off on our holiday down to Cornwall next week, but a couple of weekends ago I drank a beer I bought on last years holiday. I previously reviewed one of these 'fine dining' beers by Atlantic and very nice it was too.

This one actually had expired going by the best before date by almost a year. Great looking label, and I was quite looking forward to this as I had recently been to Zero Degrees in Cardiff and had their new blond beer with Elderflower which was very good indeed.

This was a 330ml and bottle conditioned, 5.5% abv. Conditioning very good, had to be careful on the pour though as it was easily disturbed and floating sediment despite being stored and undisturbed for a year. You can see what I had to leave in the bottle.

Orange golden in colour, aroma is light and hoppy, lemon and orange.

Light body, again the citrus is there and floral elements of the elderflower, which is very pleasant I find. Nice and dry, a little bitterness but not much. A very light summery beer, my wife who is a dry white wine drinker I thought would like this and she did indeed enjoy a taster of it.

Despite not actually using it as an accompaniment to a meal as it is intended it stood up nicely as a late afternoon drink to quench a gardener's thirst.

Atlantic Discovery Rich Cornish Porter

This was another of the bottle's I bought in May on our Cornish holiday, from the Atlantic brewery its one of their Discovery range. These are their 'fine dining ales' produced in collaboration with chef Michelin starred chef Nathan Outlaw. 

This range also includes a smooth blond beer with elderflower and lemon; a pale ale with lime, chilli and ginger; and a red Celtic bitter with cinnamon and orange. All have food matching advice, and the Rich Cornish Porter was supposed to go with stronger meats, venison, beef or wild boar.

I'd been waiting for suitable meals to try one of the 'dining ales' i've accumulated, including the Blond Beer above, and another two, some Sharps/Rick Stein bottles.

For a change on a Sunday roast we had beef, normally its chicken or pork, the last time we had beef the kids were not keen on it, but we tried again this time slow cooking brisket. That turned out fantastic if I do say so myself!

Onto the beer itself.
Lightly carbonated, perfect for the style, small head that soon faded away though.
Its body is light to medium, not to thin just right.
This porter is brewed with blackcurrants and molasses, and you certainly get a rich sharp fruity aroma.
The blackcurrants follow through in the taste, sharp, with the dark malts giving it body, nice bitterness, all went with the rich meat really well.
Overall its a nice porter on its own, and it went very nicely with the roast beef.