Pot Kettle

Fallen Acorn Pot Kettle (500ml, 4.4% ABV)

Coffee is yummy, beer is yummy. Put the two together and … yummy x yummy = yummy². It’s a mathematical fact, which is why brewers have been doing it for years.

Fallen Acorn’s Pot Kettle is their coffee porter, brewed with beans from Solent Coffee Roasters.

It comes out of the bottle with a great pillowy head. Despite the name’s implications, it’s not quite black when held up to the light, with a vague burgundy around the edges.

Smoothness and creaminess are the order of the day. It’s this, combined with the modest level of alcohol, that causes it to slip down so easily. The drinkability is strong in this one!

The taste is of roasted barley and coffee, just as you might expect, but the coffee is integrated better than many other beers that attempt this sort of thing. It really comes through in the finish – a coffee bean character that lingers pleasantly on the tongue without a hint of astringency.

The hops sit in the background, where they belong in a traditional porter, but there’s a slight tartness that nicely balances all that dark grain.

I was surprised to find that Pot Kettle is currently in Fallen Acorn’s ‘Nutty’ experimental range, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it got promoted to the Premier League of the ‘Session’ range. This has got ‘core beer’ written all over it.

Written by Richard Salsbury