Edinburgh Export Stout
Luckie Ales

A rich nose which smells of damp concrete, this is black in colour with just the faintest reddish hue and a thin line of orange at the bottom of the glass. Truly colossal raging beading creating an easy light beige foamy head. Starts carbonic and spritzy (more than I expected for a beer of this type and intensity)before revealing a deep flavour of earth, cherry and a dash of licorice. Ends with a nice long and very dry bitterness.

Poured from a 33cL bottle into a pint glass.

A: A big, fat head fills the glass briefly, before churning back in on itself and settling into patches on the beer's seemingly-viscous surface. Some bubbles, presumably another result of my vigorous pour, disturb the surface. This export stout is a dense dark-brown, opaque, and portly.

S: I smell...raisins? Sweet, dark fruit with some alcohol, some hops, and some roasted barley (in roughly descending order of magnitude). Very nice, but not quite what I expected.

T: Rather delicate flavours. Any roasted malt comes through only as lightly burnt toast. A brief flowering of fruit (apples, this time) is nipped in the bud by a hoppy presence -- interesting, but somewhat astringent. The hops, however, don't dominate, but eventually lose ground to the sweet maltiness. The end of the taste has happy hints of dark chocolate, and the aftertaste is round, wet, and more bitter than not.

M: Light body, with carbonation present. Alcoholic fruits are in the feel, as is a nutty bitterness. Very nice.

D: An interesting, rewarding beer. A bit pricey, but worth it, I think. Heavy enough to let you know it means business, but light enough to be fun and drinkable. Definitely worth a try if you see one!

Notes (from the brewery's website): This is a copy of an Export Stout (6.7% ABV, 78 IBU) brewed by Youngers of Edinburgh in 1897. Strongly hopped, well-balanced with luscious chocolate and cocoa flavours. There is a maltiness to the beer, which is not due to residual sugars. It was heavily hopped as befits an export beer and matured for many months so that the hops could mellow and contribute to the complexity of the beer.