#12EssexBeersofChristmas The Third Day

The Twelve Essex Beers of Christmas

If you though yesterday was quiet ...

Actually, after having our visitors go home this morning before going to my parents for lunch this is the first time I've really had to properly relax for about a week. Our house is quieter this evening so there was only one beer that seemed to fit tonight's slot, and it's a beer I've been looking forward to for a few weeks now.

The Third Day:
Saffron Brewery - Silent Night 5.2%

Before I review tonight's beer I need to make a disclaimer, whilst I did pay for this beer I got it at a considerable discount at the brewery and the glass was thrown in for free. I was invited to visit Saffron Brewery towards the end of November with David Ginn of Essex Food. We had a fantastic day, and you can expect a full write-up in the new year, but suffice to say we sampled (read drank) a great deal of beer while chatting to James and Ed about beer and many other things besides.

I was just starting to think seriously about whether it might be possible to feasibly do a running Christmas beer blog using only Essex beers when this bottle set me on the road to achieving that goal.

Silent Night is a Ruby Porter brewed with malted barley and torrefied wheat, which is another name for puffed wheat, the kind that some breakfast cerals including Sugar Puffs are made from, along with English Pioneer and Boadicea hops.

It pours deep ruby red with a thin off-white head with a beautiful toasty chocolate aroma that invites you in. There's lots of delicious chocolate in the taste too, with hints of burnt toast around the edges and even though it's relatively thin the full flavour rounds it out nicely. There's flashes of blackcurrant and black cherry from the hops but these are fleeting and difficult to grasp before that toasty chocolate sweeps back in to take it to a long lingering finish. For me this isn't a beer to conclude an evening, it doesn't quite pack enough punch to do that job but it is certainly heading in the right direction, particularly if there's a slice of chocolate cake or even a chocolate brownie as part of the deal. Give it a try, I think you might like it. Oh, and it's also available on cask.

If you want to find out more about Saffron Brewery and their beer you can do so by following this link to their website. Alternatively you could just wait for my post next year. I advise you to get some of their beer in readiness for that.