Guinness Extra Stout is brewed here under licence by Labatt Brewing. It pours a pitch black colour with very slight red highlights. The big tanned head is thick and creamy. It goes down very uneven, slowly. The lacing is all around and foamy. Sourness is in the taste and aroma mildly. Don’t know if this one was outdated. Found in a bad convenient store close to Montreal. Find this one less bitter then the Guinness Draught (can). Soft scent of roasted malt and nuts. Dry finish of hop. Thin mouthfeel but interesting. Not much, other then appearance.

Pours black with tan head. Nose and taste of roasted barley, sweet chocolates and coffees. Rated 1/3/2000

Dark roasted barley nose. Dark brown, thin yellow head. Roasted barley flavor, a touch sour. Bark finish. A little filmy on the palate. Good for what it is.

Bottle: Poured a deep thick black with a beige head. Sweet grassy malts and roasted aroma. Taste is a gritty dark chocolate with coffee bean and yet some hops on the back side.

The beer has an underwhelming roasted malt nose but better than the Draught. I taste chocolate notes, rather than the more widely reported coffee flavor. I usually don’t taste chocolate in stouts, so perhaps I just have some sort of taste problem where I confuse chocolate for coffee. Maybe, I should shut up and trust myself. It also tastes of black tea, english/irish breakfast, which I had a cup of before the beer. So, I have a little more grip on that flavor at least. I don’t really like the tea flavor. It’s sort of that drinking a cup of tea on an empty stomach with a big multivitamin experience. The dryness of the beer also contributes to a general mouth pucker. The aftertaste is somewhat bitter, which I don’t mind, but a bit too dry for me for a stout. I have to try to separate feel from taste because the mouth pucker is really more of a taste issue than feel. The beer has a nice creamy carbonation, but it doesn’t really do a lot beyond that.

Refrigerated bottle poured into a glass. Pours a very dark brown with tan head and watery body. Taste is roasted barley, some dark chocolate, with a sour aftertaste.

Bottle from Whole Foods Market, Charlottesville, VA. Pours an opaque black color with a large tan head that sneaks up on you. Good head retention and lacing. Aroma of dry grainy notes and slight nuttiness with a tart dark fruit note in the finish. Taste is roasted malts and dark fruits with just a hint of smoke. Fairly hoppy. Medium bodied.

first illegal beer i ever had at 16 or 17, enjoy the draught version a little more, but a classic nonetheless.