Beer of the month........February
This month's beer is a bit of a monster! It weighs
in at a whopping 7.5% ABV, which makes it the strongest beer tasted in these monthly
sessions so far.
Made by the people who bring you that redoutable
brew known as "Newcastle Brown", "The Newcastle Star" is rather like a
steroidally-pumped big brother.
Very dark brown in appearance, with a thick creamy
head, the Star is quite a sweet beer, not very hoppy, with a smooth and very full-bodied
taste. It has a long lingering finish very reminiscent of treacle or even liquorish. The
word "aniseed" popped into my head after I'd finished it, but that may have been
due to the high alcohol content........
It's not a beer I'd want to drink too much of (if I
wanted to stay conscious) and the beers I had after it all seemed very weak and watery,
but it won this month's title through sheer force of personality. If this beer was a
person, you wouldn't want to argue with them!
Incidentally, it won Tesco's Autumn 1998 Beer
Challenge, so it must have intimidated someone else besides me.