- Dark 4.2% Amber Ale
- Rich without cloying
- Body without heaviness
- Resinous marmalade, orange and citrus and ”chocolate orange” flavours
- Pale malt plus caramalt and a little chocolate malt and wheat Admiral, Bramling Cross, and First Gold hops
The original working title of the ‘All Saints Almighty Amber’ was ‘Gorgeous George’s Marmalade Switchblade’, which only makes sense if you’ve seen the movie Snatch, are familiar with a one-hit-wonder ‘80s pop duo, and understand a little about hop aromatics. In any case it’s too long a name to fit on the label (I’m told), and is what happens when you spend too much time alone to think about your sorry past.
To avoid being too transparent therefore we changed the name. In any case, coming up with the official title took longer than the development of the blessed beer (marginally), but it well represents what it is. In any case, it’s currently the darkest ale in the range, and uses a caramalt to bring richness without cloying sweetness to the chocolate malt (used in very delicate volumes!) to bring some additional body without the astringency and heaviness of darker malts, that might represent a brown porter for example.
Early experiments include priming the bottles with actual marmalade instead of sucrose, but that resulted in ruining most of the laundry in the airing cupboard and was forthwith banned. First wort hopping provides a gentle bitterness and late hopping a resinous, marmalade and orange aromatic and citrus bite through the middle. The theory is contrast - it’s a 4.2% abv chocolate orange in a glass!