The Kernel - London Brick

You know what I like about all Kernel beers? The freshness! Even the barrel aged ones that aren't technically fresh still feel fresh! With this I imagine it helps that the bottle I've got now was bottled less than a month ago but nonetheless this still looks and smells like a top quality beer! The pour is friendly, producing a creamy, frog spawn, type head which sticks to the sides of the glass but dissipates in the middle. The nose is deeply aromatic with a light caramel edge fighting its way through a hoppy aroma that you would need a cricket bat to remove from your nostrils for any significant period time after smelling it. The body is a deep, oak, brown with that beautiful crimson hue shining through. I've got a feeling that this is going to be a lovely beer... Though I don't think I've ever had a Kernel beer I didn't like.

It tastes as good as it looks! Smooth as silk and sweet as the honeyed words of an amorous poet, the hops serve as bitter punctuation to this deliciously sweet, comforting and refreshing concoction which, at 6.8%, I could happily drink a big sloppy bucket of. The softness of the body is a little reminiscent of Founders Old Curmudgeon but then there's a hint of Beavertown's 8 Ball in there, it's as if the two had a bastard love child on a night out in Bermondsy. The last Red Rye Ale that had "Brick" in the title I had was Brick Red by Sam Adams and this is in a whole different league, it's just got everything I want from a beer!

This is the kind of beer where I make wild, unrealistic claims, like "I could take a bath in this, wash thoroughly and still drink it afterwards," or "I'd drink this even if it were regurgitated from a mother bird." Maybe I wouldn't do any of those but the thoughts of doing both have not stopped me guzzling down this beauty like a python having a go at a rather wet goat.

Food suggestions: Irish stew! Too bloody right! Lovely gravy and hunks of meat with potatoes and maybe some cheesy mash on the side?! Sounds like some sort of beer atheists heaven!

Drink this if you like: 8 Ball by Beavertown and Founders Old Curmudgeon Ale, as previously stated, are similar in some respects but not so much in others. Drink this if you like the warmth you get from a lovely blanket on a cold evening or watching the sea lap, lazily, against a sandy shore... Poetry!