I’ve just got back from the weekly shop at our local Sainsbury’s and since I was last there, they’ve introduced special offers on a whole selection of Meantime Brewery beers, namely:

• Meantime India Pale Ale (750ml) [Meantime London Porter (750ml) [Meantime London Stout (500ml) [Meantime Pilsner – (375ml) reduced to £1
• Meantime Wheat – (375ml) reduced to £1

Time to stock up on those 750ml bottles of London Porter and India Pale Ale, folks. They haven’t been on special offer since this time last year (believe me, I’ve been checking every week) so you might not see them reduced again until this time next year. I’ve somehow managed to squeeze one of each into the already packed-to-capacity beer cupboard and I’ll be looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with both of them before too long.

Our local Sainsbury’s has rotated it’s 2 for £3 real ales offer again; last night I picked up a couple each of Meantime London Stout and Purity Ubu and I spotted Adnams East Green, Holt’s Maple Moon and a few others with the same red shelf-tags (I forgot to take notes, sorry…)

They had the 750ml version of Innis & Gunn Original at 2 for £5 as well.

Brewery: Meantime Brewing Company
Location: Greenwich, London
ABV: 4.5%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

The second of Meantime’s “London” beers that I’ve tried recently, their London Stout is – according to the back label – a reversion to “the original malt-only recipe”; one that recaptures the character of the sort of stout that was once brewed throughout the nation’s capital, in the days before “Pale Ales displaced Porters” and the focus of stout brewing “lived on in Ireland in its own distinct form”.

Quite obviously a reference there to the likes of Guinness, Murphy’s, Beamish and co., which – with the possible exception of bottled Guinness original, Guinness export et al – in this modern age tend to be industrially-produced, nitro-fuelled and served so chilled as to be rendered almost tasteless; at least by way of comparison to this little beauty.

Meantime London Stout is about the same strength as Guinness original, but I think it offers a lot more in terms of flavour and mouth-feel. It pours a very definite, opaque black, with barely a hint of ruby-red to it. The flavour – whilst certainly not over-powering – is a distinct mocha mix of black coffee and dark chocolate and the mouth-feel is wonderfully rich and silky.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it’s probably the tastiest, smoothest, easy-drinking (as opposed to strong) stout I’ve tried to date. So tasty and easy-drinking, in fact, that I nearly lost it to my Guinness-original-loving missus, who was sipping a can of draft-flow (or whatever they call it) at the time and was distinctly unimpressed with the latter as a result (which, of course, is what The Beer Nut has been telling us for years). I tried a sip of her Guinness-in-a-tin (purely in the interests of comparative research) and yes, it really did taste incredibly thin and watery by comparison.

So, back to the Meantime London Stout and to conclude: a very nice drop indeed and a great session beer as well, I’m sure. If you’re a regular stout-drinker then this is definitely one to buy in bulk and sup at will. I read on the Meantime website that they’re planning to launch an Imperial Stout at some point. I’ll be keeping a keen eye out for that one, I can promise you.

Just when I thought I’d managed to make a few in-roads into the beer cupboard, I nipped into my local Sainsbury’s for the weekly shop to find that, whilst they’ve called time on their summer real ale promotion (incidentally, they were selling off remaining overstocks for £1 a bottle – although they still didn’t have any Copper Dragon 1816…), they’ve also gone and re-vamped their regular range, adding at least ten new beers to the shelves.

I grabbed nine of them (my missus, Jo, was heard to mutter “kid in a sweet shop”, but I mollified her by chucking a few bottles of Guinness original into the trolley as well), leaving a couple of them behind on the grounds that I suspected I’d already tried them.

The new (to me) discoveries were (in no particular order):

• Meantime London Stout
• Wood’s Shropshire Lad Spring Bitter
• Abbot Reserve
• Morland Old Crafty Hen
• Thwaite’s Liberation
• Worthington’s White Shield
• Purity Pure Ubu
• Butcombe Gold
• Shepherd Neame Late Red

And the beer cupboard now (once again) looks a something like this:

The worrying thing is, a new branch of Morrison’s opened up in the area last week, which means there’s going to be a whole new selection for me to browse. I think I’m going to need a bigger cupboard. Or I should just start drinking (and typing) faster…