Siren Craft Broken Dream (330ml can6.5% ABV, Vegetarian)

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the fifteenth meeting of the Hampshire Temperance movement in this, the year of our Lord, 1852.

Now, I know that many of you have been concentrating your efforts on reducing the consumption of gin – or ‘mother’s ruin’ as we prefer to call it – but you may be unaware that there is an equal danger from some beers. Take, for example, this innocent looking metal can: Siren Craft Broken Dream.

The addition of coffee to the brew has lead them to describe it as a breakfast stout. A breakfast stout, I ask you! Is this not some depraved effort to promote all-day drinking? It is enough to make one go into an apoplexy. And that den of vipers, CAMRA, have had the gall to name this their Champion Beer of Great Britain!

Siren Craft Broken Dream (330ml can, 6.5% ABV, Vegetarian)

What effect might this have on a simple labourer, innocent of the perils of the demon drink? There is only one way to demonstrate. No, I must insist you remain seated, Mrs Smedlington. This is a sacrifice I will make for the good of the Temperance movement.

The can opens thusly. One can sense the deception straight away: it smells of coffee and also milk chocolate from the dark – some might say Satanic – malts.

Mmm. On the tongue also there is the presence of coffee and chocolate, along with a slight smokiness and an edge of burnt sugar. The alcohol is well disguised, and the texture is as thick, velvety and unctuous as the very whispers of temptation itself. The sweetness becomes drier in the aftertaste, and it sticks to your mouth like syrup.

I am, you will perceive, not yet inebriated after a single can, but that is purely down to the size of the vessel. Observe, as I drink a second and third!

Written by Richard Salsbury

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