Devil Mary Beers!

Jumping Hedgehogs of GLORY! It's Saturday. The rain has momentarily stopped which in Scotland means everyone is drinking alcohol in a desperate effort to stay wet.

Who am I to shun the herd?

So let's be having you!

This week it's all about the spice. I have two beers. Each with Chilli. The first of the Mary beers is the Bloody Mary porter. I love Bloody Mary's!!!

So let us beat about no more bushes with our pointy smeddom sticks. Let us get drinky!

Welcome, the tintabulous...

Henderson's Relish... I thought it was a spicy sauce and indeed it is. But it has been reimagined in this case to be a principal ingredient in this Bloody Mary Smoked Porter. How fabulous does that sound? Awesome biscuits.

Pour the smoky spicy bugger!

Oofty McGroofty! What a slinky black beast. I was half expecting it to be reddish brown in colour what with all the Bloody Mary talk but no. It's black and tan like a purring Doberman.

Can't wait!!

Incredible! What a devilishly smoky, dank, sooty beer. A fantastic smoked porter in almost every sense of the word. Except... Where was my spice? Where were the chillies? Where was the relish? Boo, bloody nowhere. And that was its selling point.

As a result, a beer which could have gone all the way to the top will have to settle for a very good but not magnificent 8/10 booms!

Dammit, it could have been so much more!

Will the next give me the chilli hit I so desire?

The by now, famous Mexicake beer! I have reviewed three different varieties of this over the years and each one, except for the rum barrel version (too rum'y) was a winner.

If you don't know, it's a dark beer brewed with barley, oats, chilli, vanilla and cinnamon. The normal brand has Chipotle chillis but this one appears to only have mullato. Hmm. Let's see if it affects the result.

Aged for 12 months in Virgin American Oak barrels. Sounds funky!

Bloody hell, is it night-time? Did a flock of oily bats just flit into my glass? It's deadly black, kind of like the muck from a Texans arse after eating brisket.

Damn.

And it's 11.8% ABV. That's just mental.

Here goes!

Good grief, I didn't think they could improve on the original but this is a damn corker! Let me say this, if you don't like barrel aged beers you will hate it but if you do...

It's got chocolate, it's got chilli heat, vanilla, cinnamon, more chocolate, smokiness and bags and bags of boozy whisky alcohol. It's almost too much but just about manages to be a headfuck that you can't help but fall in love with.

Like the Good Lady in some respects.

Hot damn, 10/10 BOOMS!!!

RAAR!!

I'm off to do 7 press ups without drunkenly falling over. Wish me luck!