Originally published in What’s Brewing December 2003
Origin: Greenwich, London
ABV: 4.5 per cent (since reformulated to 6.5%)
Buy from supermarkets
Unlike most British brewers, Alastair Hook, who founded the Meantime microbrewery in Greenwich in 2000, comes to praise lager not to bury it. Alastair was trained both in Edinburgh and at the Weihenstephan school in Munich, and has a mission to brew quality lager in Britain, alongside a range of other European-inspired styles.
Discerning supermarket beer hunters may already have encountered Meantime beers without knowing: the brewery provides Sainsbury’s inspired Taste the Difference series. But it also has its own range in elegant and distinctive bottles, as well as on draught at its pub, the Greenwich Union.
Meantime does offer a tasty Pilsener-style beer that easily puts to shame the thin, weak, under-matured, cheap and nasty travesties of the style traditionally described in Britain as “lager”. But, perhaps even more interestingly, Alastair has acted on the realisation that there’s more to “lager” than Pils.
The Greenwich micro is one of very, very few in Britain to explore the wider repertoire of central European cold fermented and cold matured (or lagered) beers, which can come in as wide a variety of colours and flavours as ales. Non-mainstream lagers are now threatened niche products even in their home countries, so any attempts to popularise them deserve applause.
Chocolate, designed to be served “lightly chilled”, is a dark lager similar to German dunkel or Czech tmavý lagers, but with something of a tweak: the recipe uses chocolate malt for a smooth chocolatey flavour, coupled with a touch of vanilla. Since chocolate and vanilla notes sometimes crop up naturally in this sort of beer, it seems logical to experiment with giving them a helping hand. In the tradition of the style, this is a filtered, though unpasteurised, beer.
The beer itself is a very dark brown — “ebony”, says the label — with only a little head, and a pastilley aroma with a distinct whiff of vanilla pod alongside dark malt and strawberries. The palate is smoothly chocolatey, nicely malty and especially sweet, an authentic combination of richness and drinkability. The vanilla is still distinct, though subtly done, and some drying hop notes begin to emerge.
The finish is soothing, with hops — fresh Fuggles, perhaps surprisingly — starting very far back and slowly become more assertive with a late smoky hint. Although not intense, the finish is long lasting, with more tongue-soothing chocolate. Well worth trying alongside Meantime’s noteworthy takes on Kölsch, Vienna red and Munich-style Festbier in the Sainsbury’s range.
Try also Black Regent (Czech Republic), Franz Josef Urig-Schwarz (Germany), Köstritzer Schwarbier (Germany), Old Miller Dark (Russia), Vyskov Havran (Czech Republic)
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/meantime-chocolate/23451/
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