Bottle at an Irish bar in Melbourne. Off black clout with a tan head. Aroma and taste are Roasted malty and coffee. light dry. medium body.

Dark body with a lightly tan head. Roasted malts, light chocolate, a bit of malt, powdered cocoa. Medium bodied. Bittersweet, roast finish. Pretty decent stout.

Bottled 375 ml from Dan Murphy’s, Eltham (Melbourne), on August 4, 2013.Dark brown to pretty much black color, brown head. Sweet, port, vinous, raisin, chocolate scent. Sweet, malty, roasted taste. Grainy, roasted aftertaste. Medium mouthfeel, medium high bitterness.

Pours black with a large tan head.Nose shows milk chocolate, cocoa and roasted malt. Not bad.Flavours are a bit light on but show roasted malt and some cocoa.Could use more carbonation, body seems a little watery.Don’t know why this doesn’t have a higher rating.

Bottle. Drank this a bit in the 80s - the label is not retro, it just hasn’t changed. Brownish black with an inch of tan head that fades to a coat and lingers. Aroma has cheap chocolate, roasted malt, prunes, vanilla essence, grass. Thinnish body but slightly creamy. Sweet with brown sugar, mild roast, chocolate, grassy/ weedy bitterness. Drying finish aided by carbonation. Some metal. Perhaps slightly worse than I recalled but really not that bad.

Bottle. Poured very drak brown, almost black with slight tan head. Aroma has a littel fruit, caramel and something vaguely smoky, but pleasant. Medium body and frothy. Light fruity start with little middle to the flavour and a long finish of roast malt and coffee. Overall, a very drinkable beer, although not special.

The beer with the big story. First about the beer: Pitch black coloured body with a decent brown head. Aroma of prunes, a bit of coffee and some roasted malt. Ligher Medium-bodied; Heavy prune, raisin and unripe pit fruit tastes with some roasted malt flavous ending bitter with a somewhat long finish. Overall, a decent beer, but not at the same level with even the most populars (Guinness, etc). Now the funny part: JonR888710, Haddon90 and I were in Melbourne, Australia when we were drinking this beer. We walked into a bottle shop downtown and asked the clerk about beers. He said that you could walk around downtown, drinking beer, as long as it was wrapped in a brown paper bag. So, we (being stupid Americans) agreed, bought the beer and proceeded to walk around carelessly drinking from our brown paper bags. We stopped and talked to locals and quickly found out that this WAS ILLEGAL, so we decided to go right back in the store and finish the beer as quick as possible. Nothing happened to us, but it was mildly entertaining during our first few days there. I sampled this beer from an 800 mL bottle in Melbourne, Australia on 03-June-2004.