Exmoor Beast, Exmoor Ales

Exmoor Beast, 6.6%

It may seem an odd-ball decision to choose a dark porter-style beer as summer gets under way but this beer is so sumptuous and delicious that it deserves to be sipped and savoured throughout the year.

Exmoor Ales is one of the country’s oldest and most influential independent small breweries. It opened in 1980 in the former Hancock’s brewery in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, which closed in 1959. Exmoor sprang to national fame when it launched Gold in 1986, the first golden ale. It was a style that helped carve out an important niche for the micro-brewing sector, offering pale but full-bodied beer to drinkers unimpressed by what passed for lager at the time.

Beast was added to the portfolio in 1992 and was named after the wild cats that roam Exmoor. In 2015 the brewery moved to new premises in Wiveliscombe, with double the capacity of the old site.

Beast is brewed with pale, chocolate and crystal malts and hopped with three English varieties: Challenger, First Gold and Goldings. It has an intense aroma of rum, molasses, dark vinous fruits, coffee and chocolate. The palate is immensely complex, with bitter hops balancing rich fruit, chocolate, coffee and rum. The finish is long and deep with profound notes of bitter hops, vinous fruit, rum, coffee and chocolate.

In keeping with its origins, when the beer had to refresh parched 18^th-century London porters, it’s a wonderfully quenching beer.

£12 330ml bottles £24. www.exmoorales.co.uk