Several breweries have caught on to the popularity of the smore and brewed beers with flavours designed to replicate the taste. Wilde Child is the latest to do so with their American porter named Gimme S’more which promises flavours of toasted marshmallow and chocolate biscuit.
For those familiar with Wilde Child they are certainly not afraid to experiment with their beers so with this in mind I am pretty confident that they can pull this off, however the proof will be in the tasting.
1. Name : Gimme S’more
2. Brewery: Wilde Child, Leeds
3. Hops : Not specified
4. Grain : Barley, Oats, Yeast & Cocoa powder.
5. Aroma : Sweet marshmallow & dark chocolate with a touch of mocha on the nose. Does not smell as sweet as many beers of this style.
6. Appearance : Black beer with light bleeding through the liquid. Tight one finger off white head
7. Body : Medium body, the addition of lactose into the brew brings a slight creaminess but not as much as hoped.
8. Taste : Initial hit of chocolate and toasty marshmallow which makes way to a pleasant bitter finish which is a good example of how a porter should be. This beer is not as sweet as expected but has all listed flavours identifiable.
Going by the description alone I was expecting something pretty sweet in flavour but what I actually got was a beer that does its very best to maintain a traditional porter style with a nice bitterness at the back end following up an initial delicate chocolate hit and a quite pleasant toasty and slightly sweet marshmallow flavour.
If I am to be critical the beer is perhaps not as creamy as expected which considering this is brewed using lactose is not as full bodied as I had hoped. Again, those expecting a sweeter beer may find themselves slightly disappointed but if you look deeper into the flavour profile as described on the can it does a decent job of doing what it is trying to.
I will be honest in saying that I have had this before as a cask beer and feel that it works much better via handpull than it does from the can, and if I was to be reviewing the cask version, I would undoubtedly have given this a higher review score. This is not to say that it should be avoided, however there are better canned beers available from Wilde Child and Gimme S’more should be described as solid rather than spectacular.
Our overall rating: 3.4/ 5.0
Check out page three for John’s review of Explicit Emphasis
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