Five Points Brick Field Brown

Origin: UK | Date: 2017 | ABV: 5.4% | On The Beer Nut: March 2018

Today's beer never actually made it into the stash. It was acquired quite recently as part of a cellar clear-out at UnderDog and I suspect it's a leftover from the Five Points launch event they hosted in February 2018. It was bottled in November of the previous year and has a best-before of just over seven months ago. I reckon that's about long enough to be considered vintage.

In my original review I complained about over-carbonation. It's always a risk with an unfiltered and unpasteurised beer like this, that it will get worse with age as the yeast keeps on chomping through the sugars. But it poured evenly and easily, forming a slim off-white head over the deep chocolate-brown body.

It's still very dry, showing a wheaty breakfast-cereal crunch with the vanilla and cocoa powder of mid-range milk chocolate. The texture is pleasingly soft, which was definitely not my experience last time out, and there's a pleasant cherry or strawberry jam note which wasn't there before.

I think Brick Field may be a good one for ageing, longer than this bottle got, and my bottle certainly hasn't got worse since it was fresh. The beer is robust enough to add complexities as time goes on, and so long as it doesn't dry out totally, there could be something fun yet to emerge. Don't touch that bottle-opener!