New beer

I tried a new (to me) beer at the weekend, it's called "Wild Raven" from brewer Thornbridge who are based in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Thornbridge call their beer "craft beer", i.e. small production and innovative with a focus on flavour and very nice it is too. To the eye it looks like a stout, i.e. dark coloured, almost black but to the nose and tongue it's like a fruity American IPA, tons of fruit and hop flavours, nice weight, smooth and reassuringly bitter. This combination of attributes seems counter-intuitive, if you close your eyes you'd expect the beer to be a light amber colour but the overall effect is good. My only criticism would be the alcohol level which is quite strong at 6.6% it's not an issue from a flavour point of view, no alcohol burn at all but I like my ales to be around the 4% level if I have a choice. Other Thornbridge beers I've tried and like include Jaipur, Wild Swan, Kipling and Chiron, you can get the first three of these in Waitrose; recommended!