1) I’ve been a beer geek for around five years now – I know because that happened around the same time I started up this blog (yeah, this blog is five years old – which is ancient in blog years). So with all that experience under my belt, you’d think I’d know better. You’d think I’d be smart enough to always avoid one of the biggest rookie errors when it comes to be.

2) But it seems that, no, I am not that smart. Not by a long way. Nope, as it transpires, I am stupid enough to open up a beer and start drinking without checking the alcohol content. It’s a big trap for young players – and also the old and stupid players like me too.

3) There I was a few Saturday nights ago, having had two or three beers and felt like another one. So I pulled out the new Modus Operandi beer I’d picked up a day or so earlier – the black IPA known as Cascadian Howl. I’m going to assume the name derives from the “official” name for a black IPA that’s a Cascadian dark ale.

4) And the howl? Well, that’s the noise I made when I checked out the alcohol content after I’d poured the beer into a pint glass. It rocked up at 8.1 per cent, which is a lot when you’ve got a full pint of it and a few other beers under your belt. I have to say I was impressed that I didn’t doze off on the lounge before I finished it.

5) Speaking of impressed, that’s what I was about the beer (once I got over the shock of the alcohol content). It’s exactly the sort of black IPA I love. Some lean too far to the IPA side of the ledger, while others go too far to the dark side, almost becoming a porter. But this Modus beer sits smack in the middle. There’s plenty of fruit hop characters upfront, while a roast coffee tang flows around the edges. It’s an absurdly well-balanced beer.

Free or paid for?: I bought a four-pack of this and am damned glad I did. Though I’m going to be a little more circumspect about when I drink it.