Brewery: St Peter’s
Location: Bungay, Suffolk, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Slattery’s, Prestwich

Having thoroughly St Peter’s Old Style Porter, I had high hopes for their Honey Porter, thinking that it would smoothly blend the characteristics of the former with just a touch of honeyed sweetness. Their website declares it to be a “traditional English porter finished with honey for a truly unique aroma and taste”. Sounds quite pleasant…

Alas, it was not to be. The bottle opened and released a suspiciously chemical reek. After a second, cautious whiff it reminded me most strongly of those distinctly unpleasant, cheap & nasty honey sweets that you can pick up in Mediterranean airports on your way back from holiday, if you’ve forgotten to buy proper souvenirs for the folks back home.

A first taste of the Honey Porter confirmed my initial impression: not so much a hint of honeyed sweetness as a shovelful of horribly artificial, quasi-honey tang… a belated examination of the label revealed the dreadful truth: “contains honey flavouring”. Not honey. Honey flavouring. And lots of it, judging by the way my taste-buds were screaming at me. After a while it calmed down a bit and the whole thing started to taste like honey cake. But it was still far too sweet and sickly, and far too artificial-tasting, for comfort.

I’m sure there was beer in there somewhere, but it was so drenched in sugars that I couldn’t really say with any confidence what it tasted like. Could’ve been a porter, it was the right colour, after all. But that’s as much as I’m prepared to say on this one. Frankly, if I hadn’t paid £2.95 for the bottle I’d have poured it down the sink and cracked open something to take the taste away. Afterwards, I rather wished I had.

So: steer clear would be my advice on this one. By all means pick up (indeed, seek out!) the aforementioned Old Style Porter, that’s a very nice drop indeed. And I’ll be re-visiting their Cream Stout before too long and am confident of an extremely pleasant renewal of acquaintance. But this stuff? Not the best. Really not the best.