Sadler's Brewery Peaky Blinder Black IPA Beer Review

To date this is my second Sadler's beer review, in this case it's the turn of the Peaky Blinder Black IPA. I should confess from the start I've never seen the hit TV program Peaky Blinders, but I've been told it's very good so I'm hoping the beer matches the program. The beer is also award winning so I guess that should be a good sign too, but I think we can all agree my opinion is what really matters otherwise why would you be here? Just as a brief note because I've covered it in a previous review Sadler's have been happily brewing for nearly 140 years in Stourbridge so they have pretty good pedigree, and some pretty good beers, but is peaky Blinder one of them?

The beer comes in a pretty nice presumably Peaky Blinder the TV show related 500ml bottle, so at least it's bottled the size a beer should be. I've not had a huge amount of black IPA's before so I'm not really sure what to expect here, but dark beers are my go to while IPA's are often among my least favourite so I'm expecting an interesting blend of flavours. At 4.4% alcohol this is far from a strong beer, but if you have a few of them they'll do a bit of damage. Again just for the record as usual I had this beer at just below room temperature. 

Peaky Blinder pours pretty dark with a luscious white head, I'd actually go as far as to say it pours like a lively Guinness, although the head is more foamy than the creamy Guinness look. Still I'd say it's a very pretty pint, but I like black and white things, I'm just old fashioned like that.  The aroma is very malty with a splash of caramel, it's not a strong smell, and it's certainly not unpleasant. That said it certainly doesn't have a complex aroma so it does offer a bit of a hint that there might not be much to the taste.

The taste very much matches the smell, it doesn't have the body or texture of a proper dark beer, or the flavour of a good IPA. It's like Sadler's have taken the most mundane bits of dark and light drinks and mixed them together to create something drinkable, but bland. The overriding taste is just roasted malts, maybe a small taste of berries, but not a lot.  I guess if you want to look like you're drinking a full bodied stout, while actually getting the texture of an IPA you might be drawn to this, and it's not offensive, it's just boring. By all means try Sadler's Peaky Blinder Black IPA, it wont upset you, but it's sure as hell not going to inspire you, so I'll give it a fairly generous rating of 4 out of 10.