Cracking open the Skull Splitter

Nae use for stripping paint.

It was Up Helly Aa yesterday, so I figured to helly aa with this sodding drinking ban. And although it's from a different Viking archipelago to the firey insanity in Shetland, I chose Skull Splitter by Orkney Brewery to be my first new beer of 2013.

It's robust and rich and sweet and dark; there was bloomin' loads going on in that glass. Loads. And all of it good. In a Pepsi Challenge between Tennent's Supey and paint-stripper, Skull Splitter wins every time. By a bloody axe head.

I mentioned before the nonsense they wrote on the label about dates and figs and dried fruits and molasses, but this beer, this mighty, Viking beer was way more flavoursome, way more complex, way more tasty than I ever expected. I should probably give their marketing folks a wee bit more slack ...

... cause you know what? It was delicious. It was fruity and spicy and deep and sexy. At 8.5%, it wasn't asking to be gulped down (and after a meagre 29 days off the drink I was wanting to gulp). It was wanting savoured. It was wanting a bit of attention. It was wanting made love to slowly.

Skull Splitter, it's my first nomination for Beer of the Year.

Washed down by a good helping of Highland Park.