Scottish Monk
Old Abbey Ales

Opaque black color. Dark brown at the edges of the glass. Poured a very tall head that collapsed into big bubbles and then to patchy skiff in under two minutes. Too dark to see the carbonation level. Left a few small dots of lace.

Strong dark roasted malt smell. A lot of yeast blending with the malt smell. Something smells like an odd overripe fruit that I cannot identify. There is a faint sweet plastic smell. Swirling the glass kicked up a light horseblanket for a few seconds and then back to the original smells.

Slightly sweet. The dark roasted malt dominates, but is not in itself very strong. Light chocolate and a hint of coffee. Very mild bitters; even less than the 22 IBU on the label. Light plum or similar fruit flavor, that got stronger the warmer it got. The aftertaste is mostly the same flavors although the fruit is quite a bit stronger. The flavors fade down evenly.

Very little tongue tingling. Blows up into a large bubbled foam instantly. Slightly gummy towards the end.

This is generally milder in flavor than I expected. Not as strong as the few other Scottish ales I had. Might be interesting in a radler, especially with a bitter grapefruit.

Custom Advent Calendar 2022- Day 2

Deep brown and with an agressively foamy tan head, it eventually simmers down and leaves a constant lace. Malty and full but thinner than a stout. There are hops coming through and-- oh my! I can't stop sipping this. It's disappearing far too quickly. A top-ranked effort.

 

650ml bottle - I'm wondering from the name here if this is a Belgian-style take on a Scottish ale.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange-tinted brown colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy tan head, which leaves some springtime alpine snow-melt lace around the glass as it quickly subsides.

It smells of biscuity and bready caramel malt, some dark orchard fruitiness (plums and dried cherries, mostly), a slight earthy yeastiness, faint chocolate notes, and an understated peaty and damp smokiness. The taste is semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, a lesser biscuity toffee thing, muddled bruised fruit, a sidling yeastiness, more hard to really nail down charred vegetation, and a tame leafy, weedy, and floral noble hop bitterness.

The carbonation is quite weak in its bored-seeming frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and generally smooth, with a bit of ashiness sticking its nose into my unwilling palates. It finishes off-dry, simply malty and ethereally smokey.

Overall, this comes across as a fairly plain and unassuming version of the style, one that could surely use an uptick in its complexity. And I don't actually know if I was imagining the yeasty character because it was indeed present, or if my predisposition to the Belgian stylings of this brewer tricked me into it. At any rate, this monk isn't really doing it for this particular heathen.