Wiper and True: Toast: Collaboration 08: Amber Ale – Bread Pudding (England: Amber Ale: 6.4% ABV)
Visual: Overripe banana to caramel brown, with a murky, cloudy mid body. A mounded inch of toffee touched white froth for a head.
Nose: Bread and butter pudding to spotted dick (The dessert). Suet. Light strawberry. Fresh. Lightly milky.
Body: Strawberry and cherries. Milky. Cinnamon. Bread pudding. Moderate hop character and bitterness. Slight resin. Mild passion fruit and dried mango. Kiwi. White grapes.
Finish: Cherries in bread pudding. Semolina. Strawberry. Light bitterness. Light kiwi. Milky. Light pine and resin. Toast and dried mango. Hop bitterness grows. Slight hop oils and herbal character. Slight granite.
Conclusion: Wiper and True’s Amber Ales were the first beers of their that really brought them to my attention. Slightly resinous and herbal matched with red fruit sweetness – I bring that up as those are characteristics that this thing also wears on its sleeves. The bread pudding characteristics are more subtle. There is an added milkiness to the beer, and while it is subtle, the bread pudding character is still definitely there – but it it is more a backdrop for the fruitier elements.
I actually find the subtlety of the bread influence mid body odd as in the aroma it is pretty overwhelming. It is kind of raisin packed, but still definitely bread pudding. In way I am glad that the body has much more going on, as it would be a bit simple otherwise, but I am also mildly disappointed as I would loved to have seen more of what that characteristic could do. But, aye they probably made the right choice – if it had been bread pudding dominated it would have become wearing pretty quickly I guess.
This is pretty far from wearing or one note – good red fruit malt characteristics, subtle dried tropical fruit from the hops that rises up to dominate as it warms, nice bready backdrop and a very nice toast character to the finish. Combined with the aforementioned resin and herbal elements and the hop oil sheen it gives a lot to get your teeth into.
Frankly, you can’t go wrong with this beer. Amber Ale is a kind of hit and miss style for me – the style is pretty wide open to definition so often you are not quite sure what you will get. Here though, Wiper and True have, again, hit it out of the park. Am I disappointed it didn’t do more with the bread character? Yes. Does that make it anything less than an excellent beer? No. This is freaking great.
Background: I liked the idea of this one – Wiper and True working with Toast, who put their profits to try and fight food waste. It is made with brandy soaked raisins, and some of the malt replaced with leftover bread, and some lactose as well. An odd set. I refer to Wiper and True as The Kernel of the west. Very good quality and I highly recommend them. Drank while listening to The Algorithm: Brute Force again. They work well as drinking music for me – intense, but without words to intrude on the writing. The beer was grabbed from Independent Spirit.
