I think the Dark Matter is the best of the bunch and it's a safe bet I'd you want to take a look at some crafter stouts as the flavours aren't too in your face. If you're buying it in the hope it's as decadent as their Norae Star beers you'll be really disappointed, cheers dude
Who on earth QC’s these beers . 🙈. Northern Monk have definitely lost my love recently as have brew dog . The worst thing is that they are actually passing these of as craft beers. I felt your pain 😱. Cheers Mark for warning us about these awful beers . Great video 👌🏻Cheers 🍻Speno
Hmmmm, I'm not sure, I think it's a sign of the times mate across the board. Probably is with beer, you can taste the penny pinching and unfortunately it really has bitten hard with these releases. A shame as they're from 2 breweries I used to admire
North Brewing and Vocation have moved far ahead of Northern monk now in that region imo, although neither totally free of gimmicky brewing. Definitely not quite at brew dog level of crap coz the core range is still high quality. Hot take though: The craft beer market is now oversaturated and they're trying to find ways to both stand out and be affordable in the era of increasing prices, so the result is desperate novelty stuff to appeal to different target market and cost-saving brewing measures. I sympathise to a point, but it's inevitable. They either adapt or go bankrupt or sell out to a big corpo to survive. What they are all missing though, imo, is that the big brands that have been going for a long long time, whilst not always the BEST beer out there do so based on one or two particular styles: ie guinness never bothered making lagers and ipas and wheat beers etc, they make stout. Foreign extra is still a stout (just a much better one) Heineken have never put out anything other than their standard pale lager out there. I think if these companies want to stand the test of time focus on a select few beers in certain styles and have that as their flagship brand. I don't think the market can survive with this much saturation for long. Just my two pence worth. Have a good day.
Wow, thank you for such a considered comment. I never thought of it that way in terms of brands doing one style and succeeding but it does make sense. The climate in terms of trends, costs, market etc has absolutely lead us to this point where at the entry level of craft beer at least, it looks like an absolute mess. Luckily this isn't the same for the industry as a whole but I feel a rebuild is needed at the entry level and I guess that'll only happen after an implosion which I feel we may be starting to witness. Thanks again for the comment 🍻
@@TheCraftBeerHub it's also telling that beavertown neck oil is now a mainstream beer and people generally love it who aren't beer nerds like we are. Macro brewery backing makes a huge huge difference and a little bit of that might need to be tolerated if it gets the general public interested in slightly different beer types with more flavour, as hard as it might be to accept. (plus the gp don't know/care about camden or beavertown et al being subsidaries of heineken etc) anyway i'll stop waffling
Nice one Sir. We’ve spoken about Northern Monks sad demise recently. Such a shame. Siren is just down the road from me and I tried the Idaho 7 on tap, and whilst not top draw wasn’t too bad. Maybe a small saving grace. Let’s keep hopeful. 🤞
Yeah it's a real shame as I genuinely used to get excited by their beer no matter what style it was, hopefully they see the light soon before they go too far down the hole. Siren are hit and miss in the supermarket but their keg stuff is normally pretty decent! I would like to visit their tappy, was at Elusive a few months ago but I was pushed for time so didn't have the opportunity to pop across the road, cheers mate 🍻
@darreno6222 I'll certainly try to get hold of those, my nearest Sainsburys is around an hour from me so I'll have to tie it in with a work trip out 🤣 I feel Sainsburys and Asda are leading the way with the supermarket beers at the moment
@user-hu8lh5wx8f haha that's the issue, driving half the length of Norfolk for below average supermarket beer isn't something I do 🤣 I have to tie it in with work somewhere to make it worth my while
The Dark Matter 2years ago, would have been an impy in Morrisons, with a higher ABV and of higher quality! Sadly we wont see any new Imperial Stouts in supermakets anymore, partly due to the cost
Sad to see how bad supermarket craft beer has got Northern monk still make decent beers but they are about 7 quid minimum now sadly the cost of things has gone way up. Im lucky i live near a Northern monk bar and can try a lot of there stuff
Yes, I've heard they still produce good stuff at that price point but I had heard a few whispers that even that stuff isn't as good now as what it was a year ago. Hard to say for sure as I don't buy the NM bottleshop offerings that often
I used to really look forward to the latest supermarket releases and go out asap to pick them up. But since like the last 12-18 months the quality is getting lower and lower yet the price is going up. Grabbed 5 paulaner oktoberfestbiers from aldi for under a tenner be hard pressed to find better value for money.
Couldn't agree more Ricky, in terms of value, the Paulaner Oktoberfest and the Spaten hells are top of the shop shop at the moment. I think supermarket beer is in a really difficult spot at the moment but for me, the scary thing is how quick the decline has been, like you say, 12 months and it's gone pop
I've had the dark matter other day! amazing stout! a solid 8.5 out of 10 from me! edit: for me anyway, just got the review bit on your video, ohwell, each to their own and all that. but I will that that I agree as a brewery, northern monk aren't what they used to be!
Absolutely, beer is great as it is a game of personal tastes. I just think NM are capable of so much more and I do worry where they will be in around a year or so, hopefully they don't succumb to the commercial game entirely
“ your nans old cellar smell “ 🤣🤣 what a waste of money £15… I’m definitely more selective nowadays. Used to always buy the new supermarket drops, but just refuse to now. That £15 could’ve got some beauties from trembling madness and beers of Europe! 🍻
Yeah man, really really disappointing, as I said, Siren were always a bit hit or miss for me but it's such a shame to see how far Northern Monk have slipped. Thankfully the majority of breweries out there are still pumping out cracking stuff
Nothing worse than a thin stout, particularly at 8%. No excuse for it. Craft breweries seem to have forgotten how to do the basics amongst all the novelty nonsense.
Certainly at the entry level the lines have reslly become blurred for me. Lots of cheating going on, twin that with questionable quality it's a recipe for disaster, thank you for the comment 🍻
