Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week": Wychwood Hobgoblin Dark English Ale

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Mar 7, 2007 5:00PM

The Witney, Oxfordshire-based Wychwood brewery is the largest producer of organic ales in the United Kingdom. They're probably best known for the fantasy-inspired, D&D-knockoff artwork of their labels. We also suspect that they might have a healthy fascination with the goblin section of Spider-Man's rogues gallery, which is totally cool by us. Speaking of the wall crawler, one of the few mistakes that Sam Raimi made with the Spider-Man movie franchise, aside from casting Kirsten Dunst and her baby corn teeth as Mary Jane (seriously, her teeth stopped developing after Interview with the Vampire), was casting the wide goblin smile of Willem Dafoe and hiding it inside a mask. The Green Goblin should look something akin to what's on the label to Wychwood's Green Goblin Cider. But we'll leave the movie reviews to Rob and get back to talking about beer.

Specifically, Wychwood's Hobgoblin Dark English ale. Dubbed by Wychwood as "the official beer of Halloween," this is a sweet beer, rich in toffee and chocolate flavors; a beer for kids at heart. Hobgoblin's color is somewhere on the lighter side of a brown ale, with a quickly dissipating head and no lacing on the glass. In addition to the chocolate and toffee on the palate, you'll pick up notes of straw, light berry and malted barley. Browsing the ratebeer forums, a beer lover in Toronto named "Mabel" picked up "faint notes of flatulence" in this beer. Which just goes to show you that everyone has a different palate.

Hobgoblin has a bitter finish. It's like the beer is trying to throttle your throat from the inside, but in a good way. Overall, what we liked about Hobgoblin was its unpredictability. It could be classified as an English bitter, a dark ale, or even a brown ale, but it's really none of the above. We paired this with cheese pizza last night, but it would best complement desserts like tarts.

Although Hobgoblin is called the "official beer of Halloween," with St. Patrick's Day fast approaching we prefer to think of it as the beer that slays leprechauns. PIck up a bottle at Lush, Archer, and Kimbark Liquors. Hobgoblin Dark English Ale is Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week."