Brewery: College Green
Origin: Belfast, Northern Ireland
ABV: 4.2%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: The Vineyard, Belfast

Recent years in Ireland, north and south, have seen a rise in smaller breweries not only producing a range of beer, but also managing to get their produce more readily available in shops.

The newest of these is College Green Brewery, based in the heart of the Queens University district in Belfast. Set up as part of the Molly’s Yard restaurant my research has been unable to determine if any beer is actually being brewed yet on the premises, or if it’s still being made at parent company Hilden Brewery (handy enough considering Molly’s and College Green are run by the offspring of the Scullion family who own Hilden).

Anyway, enough preamble, on with the tasting. First impressions are of a pitch dark, brown beer smelling of chocolate, as you would expect from the name. However, much of the bitter chocolate malt flavour I was expecting seems held back, and the whole affair is just too light for a stout. I also detected what seemed like cocoa powder mixed with baking soda, which while providing a bit of zing only served to leave a not very pleasant aftertaste. I so wanted to like this but was sadly disappointed.