When it comes to new and unusual creations in the Scottish craft beer world, it might seem impossible to come up with anything weirder than what already exists.
With Blue WKD and Irn Bru flavoured sours, Bovril-infused stouts already on sale… it really takes something totally outside the box to surprise me these days.
But surprised I was when I picked up the can of African Haze from the Stonehaven-based brewery Reids Gold — a “baobab hazy ipa”.
A quick Google told me that it’s made with the fruit of the Baobab tree, also known as “the upside down tree”, native to Madagascar.
Definitely not something I’d expect from a brewery in Stoney.
So, how did it taste? I reviewed it, along with three other funky brews from Reids Gold, to find out…
Beer 1: Lost to the Sea, tropical pale ale with all sorts of fruit jammed in
- 4.7%
- £3.25 per 440ml can on the website
- Reids Gold Brewing Company, Stonehaven
- Style: Tropical pale ale
This incredibly fruit-filled creation was made by Reids Gold in support of Stonehaven singer songwriter Colin Clyne for his single Where The Ships Go To Die.
And being brewed to support a single release isn’t the only unusual thing about this beer.
It’s rammed with as much flavour as a fruit cocktail, including bananas, pineapples and a sort of mango called amchur.
I’ve had many a fruit-flavoured pale ale/IPA, but rarely are the this intensely fruity. Worth seeking out.
Rating: 4/5
Beer 2: 8 Ball Stout, a dark beer full of chocolatey goodness
- 5%
- £3.10 a 440ml can on the website
- Reids Gold Brewing Company, Stonehaven
- Style: Milk stout
You couldn’t get further away from the first beer in this review if you tried with this one from the Stonehaven brewery Reids Gold.
It’s like a pint of Cadbury Dairy Milk, more sweet than bitter, but still with a lovely chocolatey bitterness.
A massive foamy head too, this’d be a good beer to offer a Guinness lover.
A really super example of a stout, and for £3.10, you can’t go wrong — this beer, and most of the brews from Reids Gold, are a lot cheaper than the usual north of £4 a can prices you see nowadays for craft beer.
Rating: 3.5/5
Beer 3: Life Hands You Oranges, a super orangey sunny day in a glass
- 5%
- £3.40 a 440ml can on the website
- Reids Gold Brewing Company, Stonehaven
- Style: Flavoured hazy IPA
If their Lost To The Sea tropical pale ale could be compared to a soft drink, I’d go with Um Bongo… and this one, Life Hands You Oranges, is basically a few ABV percentages away from a bottle of Orangina.
Superbly citrusy and refreshing, it’s full of sweet flavours of oranges and balanced out very well with the bitter IPA base.
I could just imagine having one of these with a straw and a little cocktail umbrella in the baking sun on a tropical beach. Really exceptional.
Rating: 4.5/5
Beer 4: African Haze, the baobab-flavoured beer
- 5.1%
- £3.25 per 440ml can on the website
- Reids Gold Brewing Company, Stonehaven
- Style: Flavoured hazy IPA
So finally ,we come to the baobab beer. What does it taste like?
Having never had baobab fruit before, to me the closest thing I could compare this beer to to would be a slightly bitter kiwi.
Whatever it is, it works really well with a hazy IPA as the base beer, in fact so much so that if I didn’t know it had baobab in it, I wouldn’t know if there was any fruit in it at all.
A really interesting and rewarding beer for the adventurous from this Stonehaven brewery.
Rating: 3.5/5
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