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.

Pours pale gold into a shaker. White crackling head recedes to whisper rim. Sweet corn aromas. Crisp and sour upfront turning to a sharp, slightly pleasant alcohol burn before the lasting sour malt finish.

Pours pale yellow into a shaker. Bright white head with medium retention recedes to hug rim. Sweet malt and alcohol aromas. Crisp and dry upfront with lasting marshmallow and alcohol finish. Not a lot going on but moreish.

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.