Durham St. Cuthbert

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

(Bottle conditioned). A new favourite of mine - and I'm the first one to rate it, even! (It has been in the database for quite a while. Btw, cask conditioned this beer is called "Magnificat", otherwise it's the same brew.) I had this wonderful bottle conditioned beer under the vaulted ceiling of Durham Cathedral and Cloister Restaurant, where it rightly belongs. The commercial description seems pretty accurate, but this beer may have more in common (strength, yeastiness) with some belgian ales than most British IPAs. Durham Brewery is not much more than 10 years old, but this rich and full flavoured beer would be worthy of St. Cuthbert himself (he died 687 AD, btw). Colour is golden and hazy, carbonation (natural) is low to moderate. If one needs a textbook example of the fact that beer is made of the three elements malts, yeast and hops (+ water, of course), and that each of those three elements should be clearly discernible in aroma and flavour - well, here it is. To quote the brewery: "Despite being strong, this beer is not too sweet, but has a luscious malty base over which a complex bitterness makes balancing, thirst quenching properties." Amen!