Titanic Stout, champion bottled beer

Titanic Stout, brewed by Titanic Brewery in Burslem in the Potteries, was voted Champion Bottled Beer of 2004 at CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival at London Olympia in August 2004.

Titanic is one of the longest-running British micro-breweries, founded in 1985. After early difficulties, Keith Bott bought the company and moved to new premises in 1992. Keith installed new plant in 1995 and moved yet again to bigger premises in a former school gymnasium in 2002. The company has grown to become a small regional rather than a micro. Keith Bott is the current chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers. Titanic is named after the famous liner that sank in 1912. The ship's captain, Edward Smith, came from Stoke-on-Trent. Other beers from the brewery include Iceberg, Captain Smith's, Wreckage and White Star, the shipping line that owned Titanic. Titanic Stout is 4.5%, available on draught, and in bottle. It's brewed from Maris Otter pale malt, wheat malt and roasted barley, and hopped with Goldings, Northdown and American Willamette: the American variety is a derivative of the English Fuggle.

Roasted barley is not a common grain used in British brewing. It's better known as a key ingredient in Dry Irish Stout. Roasted barley is not malted but is kilned at an extremely high temperature until the grain looks like coffee beans. It gives both colour and a bitter, slightly charred character to beer.

The stout is jet black in colour but with the ruby edge that is typical of the style: hold the beer up to a sharp light and there is a transluscent hint of ruby down the side of the glass. The beer throws a dense, barley-white head of foam. The aroma is big and deep, with an espresso coffee and bitter chocolate note, underscored by biscuity malt and tart hops. Liquorice comes through on the palate, while the biscuity malt builds on the tongue. The finish is long, with intense notes of coffee, chocolate and burnt cake from the malts and a lingering hop bitterness.

The beer is bottle conditioned with yeast and will improve with age. The bottle size is 500ml and it is available from selected branches of Sainsbury's. For further information about stockists contact the brewery on 01782 823447. website www.titanicbrewery.co.uk.

The runner-up in the bottled beer championship was Young's Special London Ale. Yates' Isle of Wight brewery came third with Special Draught.