Brannigans Proper Thick Cut Crisps Roast Beef & Mustard

And here's a little 40g packet of Brannigans thick cut crisps from Budgens in East Finchley.

I suppose I must have seen Brannigans crisps before but perhaps they were always in large bags which as you know I hesitate to buy. And I'm glad I didn't find a bigger bag because I wasn't mad for these crisps.

However, quite a number of the taste testers liked them a lot.

The problem for me is that I couldn't taste much on the roast beef front... and I don't like mustard. And the mustard part of this crisp flavour is very much to the fore. But, you know, as I said, some of the taste testers were very pleased and admit to liking mustard a lot. So the contents of this small bag didn't hang around for long.

The crisps are quite thick cut (as advertised), with quite a lot of flavour dust, but rather pale in colour. Nice crunch. And the aroma from the bag is more beefy than the actual taste. And yet, there is no actual beef. Probably. The bag doesn't say they are suitable for vegetarians but as the flavour seems to be compounded from milk, mustard and yeast extract I can't see what meat might be involved. Unless it's in the "flavourings" of course.

Brannigans crisps are made by KP Snacks.

Burt's Thick Cut Guinness

Burt's Thick Cut Potato Chips Hand Cooked with Care in Guinness flavour (Guinness ESTD 1759). What a long name for a packet of crisps.

And these are quite large crisps with quite a large crunch. The photograph doesn't really show how much darker they are than your average crisp (Guinness is dark of course), and the photo on the package is so moodily lit you don't get the dark colour of the crisps from that either.

Quite large, quite crunchy, quite a lot of flavour dust... but the flavour? Guinness? Really?

I'm not a beer drinker. I learned to drink VB (Victoria Bitter) in a Sydney heatwave  - there was a building site and it was hot - but the VB website wants me to enter my DOB before I can see any more than the front page so I'm not going to bother with that.... And I've not tried Guinness at all because for all its fabulous advertising it looks as though it isn't for me.

However, why not try a Guinness flavour crisp?

Well, I took them to work and set out a bowlful in the kitchen for the reluctant taste testers to try.

No-one guessed what they were eating. Suggestions included brioche, dirty potatoes, meaty... kangaroo or antelope?, and (somewhat facetiously I thought) cauliflower and bamboo shoot with a hint of beef.

I thought these crisps tasted of rather yeasty bread. Having interrogated friends who do drink/have drunk Guinness I'm not convinced these crisps taste anything like Guinness.  But it was worth a try. And you may well think I'm wrong.

Grown in a field called Roundwood; cooked by Roddy; all natural flavours, gluten free, no artificial colours, no MSG, no hydrogenated fats; a Facebook page and (apparently) a Twitter account (I haven't looked), these crisps have much to recommend them. Plus we get the LEAF Marque -Burt's potatoes are grown by farmers committed to improving the environment, and there's www.lovetheflavour to visit too. Which is all good.

But as I said, I'm not a sure a taste of Guinness is included.