Beer Aether Brewing Creature Of The Night Peanut Butter Stout

We’ve seen a few peanut butter dessert beers in recent times, and often they’re sticky and syrupy, and fattened with lactose. If you’ve a sweet tooth, they may be just the thing you’re looking for. But what if you want the peanuts, you want the chocolate, you want the thick mouthfeel… but you want to ease off the sweetness?

This is where Creature of the Night comes in. It’s thick - the dark head rises in slow motion, because even air struggles to wend its way through the viscous body. It’s aromatic - put a Snickers in a blender with some peanut brittle and peanut fudge for good measure, and take a deep whiff of the ensuing eruption of nutty sweetness with a hit of chocolate, and you’ll have an idea of how this beer smells.

But, when you taste it, while there’s enough sweetness coming through to hold up the peanut-butter-dessert-ness, there’s no syrupy, lactose-y teeth-hurting cloy to be found. The flavours are bold, but ease off with a dry, roasty finish rather than a mouthful of sugar.

The smell is huge. The texture is impressive (as is the texture on the label of the can). The taste won’t give you diabetes.

Mick Wust