St. Columba's Bog Scottish Export Ale
Brewsters Brewing Company & Restaurant - Eleventh Avenue

20oz pint at the Century Park location.

This beer appears a slightly hazy, dark bronzed amber colour, with one flabby finger of puffy, loosely foamy, and somewhat creamy beige head, which leaves a bit of distant African tree copse lace around the glass as it genially recedes.

It smells of smoked caramel and toffee malt, vegetal peat, muddled black orchard fruit, a touch of earthy yeast, and weak leafy and musty noble hops. The taste is meaty caramel malt, treacle, some reduced plum and bruised pear fruitiness, a further smoked graininess, sedate vegetal notes, and plain leafy, earthy, and weedy hop bitters.

The carbonation is quite ethereal in its wan attempt at frothiness, the body a solid medium-heavy weight for the style, and genuinely smooth, with a wee airy creaminess kicking in as things warm up a tad. It finishes sweet, yet moderated just enough by that lingering peat bog ashy edginess.

Overall, a pretty decent rendering of this stronger Scottish style - the agreeably elevated ABV totally integrated into the robust candy bar friendly malt, while the cheeky burnt peat essences are kept on a thankfully short leash. Certainly worth checking out, if you're into something different than all those hopped to the nuts offerings out there right now.