Craic Stout
Devils Backbone Brewing Company

 

Pours dark brown with ruby highlights and a 4 finger tan head that leaves good lacing as it goes.

Aroma of dark malts, predominately coffee with hints of caramel.

Burnt malts and coffee in the taste. Fairly one dimensional, but it's pleasant and it suits the style.

Rather light in body for a stout. Creamy. Highly carbonated, especially early on, and drying in the end.

A pretty good stout. Not spectacular, but solid all around.

This one pours a moderately dark black with brown tints, with a one inch white head, and a lot of lacing.

This doesn't smell like a whole lot- a bit of roast and old coffee grounds mainly. It feels a bit weak.

This one tastes basically like it smells. What's there is good- for sure, nice little roast character, earthy smoke and some creaminess- but it's really, really watery, and very lightly flavored. It's really drinkable but quite forgettable.

This is light and watery as said above, with a good drinkability.

This was alright but not much to write home again.

 

Pours with a small head that dissipates quickly.
Smell is pretty nice with good roasted grains and some coffee notes.
Taste is decent, but nothing special.
Thin mouthfeel; feels like a soda.
Not bad overall, but nothing to write home about.

 

Poured from the bottle into a nonic pint glass. Bonned March 9th 2017.

Deep dark walnut brown body color, but a good amount of translucent red hues to it. Head creation is very minimal. A solid tan nearly mocha colored head, raising only just above a finger in height. No retention, but fine creamy make up, and dissolving to a somewhat open puck and good sized collar.

Aroma is nice if slightly odd. Light hints of toast, but there's a lactose like milky quality it seems coming off the beer. Hints of sweet milk and slight vanilla sensing. Few hints of milky like chocolate and toasty coffee so slightly.

Palate just makes it solid. Light bodied with good crackling grain bill. Toasty and hints of nutty malt, with an excellent mid palate and lingering hop bitterness on subsequent sips. Hop angle is actually quite forward for a stout of this lightness. Hints of pine and soft dryness, a real good but pleasurable parching mid mouth tingly sensation. Further sips require more drinking.

This is a real nice flavorful light brew, I love it's simplicity and rich flavor.

 

Poured into a pilsner glass medium thick body, very dark with a slight kaki head. Lacing through drinking. Color is almost black. Smell is earthy peat and smoke. Taste is complex. Some roasted malt and slight coffee/cocoa. Notes of hop bitterness but not overly. A smoky charred aftertaste.
Body is medium heavy with mild carbonation.
Overall a very fine Irish stout.

 

 

 

 

Poured from a 12 oz brown bottle into a clear glass nonic pint. Bottled on 04.12.17.

A: Very dark brown with 1-2 finger off-white head with good retention and tons of lacing.

S: Blast of roast malt with light caramel note, background herbal hop

T: Moderately bitter with less interesting flavor, falls a bit short with some roast character and some medium-range caramel but none of the coffee and chocolate notes that can make this an interesting style.

M: Does finish moderately dry with high carbonation and light-medium body.

O: Good not great, enjoyable and solid but could be even better with a bit more malt complexity to play up either the coffee or chocolate note this style can bring.

12oz bottle poured into a snifter

A- pours deep black in color with a two-finger creamy off-white head that has good retention and leaves lots of lacing behind

S- smells of roasted malt, light char, cocoa, earthy hop undertones & caramel

T- light roasted malt up front with some smoky charred notes, followed by cocoa and chocolate flavors, the finish is semi-dry with a linger of chocolate, coffee and caramel

M- light body with moderate carbonation leads to a foamy mouthfeel and a crisp semi-dry finish

O- easy drinking stout with plenty of flavor, for 4.6%

 

Second bottle from the variety pack; bottling date of March 9th, 2017.

The look of the beer is definitely right in line with what's expected of an Irish stout (or a stout in general) -- pitch-black color, so dark that my little LED flashlight struggles to penetrate even the narrowest part of the glass, with a significant layer of tan foam on top. The foam shrinks to a thin coating (with thicker ring around the outer edges) within a minute or so, but still looks nice.

Smell is also just what you think of when you think of this style -- lots of dark roastiness. There's also a bit of a sweeter (or maybe just chocolatey-er?), smoother thing hanging out behind the rougher, dryer roasty smells; as the beer sits and warms a bit this stands out a bit more, though the roastiness is still very much present. On a long sniff after this beer has sat out to warm a bit, just a hint of this really nice dark-chocolate type thing starts to show up.

Taste seems a tad milder than the smell, oddly enough, but the roasty and chocolatey elements are still definitely there. The carbonation seems a bit high and that "carbonation flavor" seems to be drowning out the other features just a bit -- I think that's a major factor in the flavors seeming milder than the smell -- but once that calms down a bit they pop out a lot better. Having the beer sit for a while to calm the bubbles is definitely recommended. There's a lingering dark roastiness, approaching burnt/charred and almost smoky/ashy, on the aftertaste. No hop flavors that I can detect, despite the 39 IBU -- I'm guessing they mainly went toward bittering vs. flavor/aroma with this one, which makes sense for this style of beer.

Feel is a little fizzier than I'd like at first, but overall still pleasant. Once the initial burst of fizz wears off, it's got a fairly thick feel to it for something so low in ABV -- almost feels like it's coating my tongue a bit, and that's just from the first sip! Despite this, it never really comes across as sweet/sticky -- it is definitely very dry, as the name of the style would suggest. My only issue is the carbonation, it calms down a bit after sitting for a while but at first it really is a bit much.

Overall a pretty nice Irish Stout -- seems it's rare to see one outside of Guinness so it's interesting that they picked this style for one of their collaboration beers. Would be great if not for the weird overly-fizzy mouthfeel bringing it down a notch, but it's still good.

 

 

Poured from a bottle into a glass.

Near black. Dense creamy tan head. Sticks to the glass like cappuccino froth.
Aroma of dark roasted malts. A touch of sweetness.
A little husky bitterness from the roasted malts. Also a grassy hop bitterness.
Mouthfeel is not thin, but light and drinkable. More hearty than puny ole Guinness. A little bit coating.