Just before I left the country, and this blog, for two months I had started work on the Great Supermarket Craft Beer Index. It entails the difficult task of of drinking lots of beer and reviewing it, to make people’s lives easier when it comes to supermarket craft beer decision making. Naturally, since I’ve been away, the supermarkets have broadly updated their range resulting in my carefully curated list being at least partly out of date. Now that I am back, however, the goal is to get index updated as much as possible in the run up to Christmas.

Today’s review is an interesting collaboration brew between two brewing giants of the North: Leeds based, craft beer heavyweights Northern Monk and the traditional pub stalwarts Timothy Taylor’s. They have come together to create ‘Northern Rising’ a 4.4% nitro stout, that I originally bought in Marks and Spencer but is now available as a four pack in Morrisons.

Unlike your typical canned beer, this one needs to be hard poured. This means instead of gently pouring into your glass to avoid an overly large head, you tip it upside-down pour it all in one go. This gives it a cascading effect much like when you get a Guinness at a pub, resulting in a oil black beer with a mocha brown, tightly compact head. The nose is light with a slight roasted aroma to the beer. The body of the beer is incredibly smooth, with a low bitterness. The flavour, while not incredibly strong, still has the classic characteristics you’d expect from a stout of roasted malts and coffee.

A quick note on the can art: When not collaborating on their artists specials, this is the rough template that Northern Monk typically go for. I always like this label and also think it works particularly well with the black core colour with the gold accents. It really drew my eye when browsing the supermarket shelves.

I have noticed more and more nitro stouts hitting the shelves of supermarkets and bottle shops over the last few months. This is a fantastic addition to the variety available because in my opinion there is no better stout than a nitro one. The additional creamy smoothness that the nitrogen provides really enhances the drinking experience for me, giving that Guinness feeling at home while also getting to try a variety of alternatives to the world’s ubiquitous nitro stout option. When comparing, ‘Northern Rising’ is a really good alternative. Great flavour and fantastically easy drinking. I would also be very interested in trying it on draft for the full authentic experience!

Score: 8/10

Check out snappier review on my Instagram!

If you want to mix up your at home Guinness drinking then I would certainly recommend grabbing this the next time you pop into Morrisons!

Additional Information:

Style: Nitro Stout

Hops: Not Available

Malt: Not Available

IBU: 22

ABV: 4.4%

Gluten Free: No

Vegan: Yes!