We love great Imperial Stouts. Not only are they capable of possessing huge amounts of a wide variety of flavours but they offer a warming, comforting kick when the weather is This Bloody Freezing. Honestly – I just don’t want to go outside until at least March right now. At least. Let me hibernate, horizontally, in a onesie sleeping bag, heating cranked, listening to Sigur Ros to soothe my soul whilst sipping a marvellously warming stout. Please and thank you.
Naturally, we’ve got some really great Imperial Stouts right now – absolutely primed for cack weather/warding off S.A.D. From Jackie O’s, to Northern Monk delivering both ‘Death’ and a marshmallow stout, to barrel-aged bad boys from 8 Wired and De Molen, we got your back. And your mouth. Or something. Love for them all is in the Ghost Whale air!
What we don’t love however is how the above-pictured David Draiman of Disturbed fame. He has made most of his cash ruining songs originally by Tears For Fears (giving us this weeks email title pun, no less) and Simon&Garfunkel as well as his own turgid compositions. If you don’t know who Disturbed are – really, don’t trouble yourself too much unless you’re into Tapout, Monster Energy drinks and WWE. No judgement passed though, of course.
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Really excited about a lot of the beer that has landed in store this week, so without further ado….
Block 15 have hit our shelves for the first time. From Corvallis, Oregon we’ve nabbed Sticky Hands (DIPA), Gloria (Pilsner) and Cosmic Cold Brew (Coffee Stout). Very limited stock on these – Do. Not. Sleep.
On a totally different vibe with the crazy imports – we’ve got a couple of bottles (literally a couple) by The Ale Apothecary. These really are something very special indeed. Red Echo is a wheat wine style beer aged in wine and wheat whisky barrels whilst Be Still is a mixed fermentation sour brewed with cascara and cacao nibs before being aged in rye whiksy and wine barrels. Apothecary indeed, it could be argued these guys are pushing the boundaries of what can be considered beer.
Closer to home, and sort of on the more ‘sensible’ end of the scale, Northern Monk are just consistently killing it with new releases. Too many to list here really – but everything from amazingly tasty lagers to low ABV pales, to Triple IPA’s and Imperial Stouts – just click above. None of them are not great.
Wylam have delivered their first two cans of 2018 – one of them being the next iteration of the hugely popular and sought after WxY3 (following on from WxY and WxY2, natch) – their wonderful IPA collaboration with Yeastie Boys.
Evil Twin have released the next two beers in their Lemonade IPA series of collaborations with the ubiquitous Omnipollo – this time it’s Coffeenade (yep, lemon and coffee) and Half & Half , which is basically lemon iced tea beer. Yep.
Other breweries hitting our shelves for the first time this week – Heaney (N. Ireland), Stu Mostow (Poland) and Sakiskiu Alus (Lithuania) as well as the belated return of some lovely stuff from Nøgne Ø. Some amazing, forward thinking, interesting and drinkable stuff here – you’d do well to give it a punt. One of our founding aims was to provide high-quality beer from around the world and we are very happy to be building on this aspect of Ghost Whale. Let us know what you think!