Mussel Inn Black Rhino

I've mentioned the Mussel Inn before on my trip to Nelson, but haven't done a review of one of their beers. The Mussel Inn is a pub in Golden Bay which has been around since the early nineties and its brewery has been around since the mid nineties. They source all their ingredients locally (more or less) and have a very wide range of beers that you can get on tap and a bunch of other beers that you can buy in bottles.

One such bottled beer is the Black Rhino robust Imperial Porter style dark Ale. Winter is the best time to get into the dark beers. The robust part is probably the 7% alcohol. The colour is good and dark and thick, which is what you want from a porter. The beer itself had a burnt taste too it, which I guess comes from the burnt malt, again what you would expect. There was also a slight chocolately aftertaste. It certainly ticked all of the porter boxes, so can't really be faulted on that front but at the same time it was just lacking that little oomph that turns a good beer into a great beer.