The elliptical nature of beer

Elliptically the beer spreads itself out on my palate, a series of wide spaced dots of darkness-influenced flavours — a coal tar sweetness, a honey roast hazelnut hint of toffee and an iron hand of English hop (perhaps Fuggles) that acts like a whip to bring these meandering flavours to attention. I like it and it’s an English, West Country, bottle conditioned beer that has the gumption (or should that be audacity?) to call itself a porter. Oh who cares, it’s a beer whose soul has a depth I would willingly plunge into if it were a pool where a fast flowing river took its rest on the journey to the sea. Oh it’s Cheddar Ales Totty Pot. 

And who is this that walks amongst us, a dark framed figure whose shape changes as often as the sand in the Sahara? Black IPA, Cascadian Dark Ale, black bitter, or just a mere mortal of a beer? Who cares? What I have had in my glass this Christmas has been a magnificent beast of ringing singing hop diligence and dark tarry eroticism, a beer that once again comes out of the West Country, via West Point and the West Coast. Oh it is Moor’s Illusion, with which I have spent some time with and hope to explore more of. Black IPA — I kind of like it, its detractors remind me of the accounts I have read of some unnamed person who shouted ‘Judas’ at Bob Dylam when he started rocking up his folk (and did you know that the Stasi allowed their informers to choose any name apart from Judas — the power of names indeed). Elliptically yours…