Unless Your Name is Derek
Refined Fool Brewing Co.

473 mL can from the brewery; no canning date. Served barely chilled. The full name for this beer is "OK, Everybody Can Take The Armadillo Off Their Head, Unless Your Name Is Derek".

Pours inky black, with glints of ruby red when when held to a bright light. More than two fingers of foamy, buff-coloured head explodes from the surface before rapidly deteriorating; less than five minutes later, a frothy collar and a few swaths of lace are the only remnants. Slightly sweet aroma with notes of treacle, raisin, dark chocolate and caramel.

Not bad at all. I'm getting cocoa, treacle and caramelized sugars early on, with hints of raisin, plum and coffee developing by mid-sip; there's also some oatmeal sweetness in the background. Restrained roastiness at the finish, with a slight coffee bitterness that lingers for a second or two; shades of dark fruit & dark chocolate also reverberate into a persistent aftertaste. Medium in body, with low carbonation that barely registers on the tongue, resulting in a soft, smooth mouthfeel. A tad thin for 6%, but that does make it a bit easier to gulp back quickly.

Final Grade: 3.82, a worthy B+. It has been a long time since I've last had an oatmeal stout from Refined Fool: I recall enjoying their Second Breakfast quite a bit. Unless Your Name is Derek is also a solid stout, though with 11 years of daylight between the two brews, all I can do is look at my old review and compare notes... and after doing so just now, they're strikingly similar. Seriously though, don't put armadillos on your head, because they can give you leprosy. Zoonotic disease transmission feels bad, man. Also, it's disrespectful to the armadillo.