Meantime London Stout

Whilst recently searching the Real Ale section at my local Tesco I noticed a new addition to their lineup - Meantime London Stout (abv 4.5%) and I also successfully convinced my wife that I needed to get a bottle! This stout is a throwback to Porter style stouts and is a very good interpretation of what traditional stout porters would have been like. The beer is balanced towards the roasty licorice end of the stout spectrum and whilst not completely dry, has a nice molasses like sweetness, that does'nt protract from the dry roastiness, but certainly seperates the beer from an Irish style dry stout. I think this is an excellent example of a brewery doing the research to identify a product that the market needs and then producing a product and actually trying to meet the requirements identified. This is definetely one of the best beers I have had this year to date.