Belhaven Scottish Stout

Today has been a long day.

How long? So long that I, Pope Crisco, have the “White Boy, Working in a Bank’s Call Center Blues.”

First world problems, I know. I’ll shut up about my problems with being gainfully employed, and instead concentrate on tonight’s beer.

In the black shorts, weighing one pint and point nine fluid ounces, we have Belhaven Scottish Stout, and in the Star Wars pajama shorts and white undershirt, weighing at something in excess of a small Japanese car, Pope Crisco.

This stout pours out a nice, dark, true black, not just a very dark brown. The head forms thick, but dies down expeditiously to a penny’s thickness, and exhibits a nice hazel color with a charcoal like tint.

Exhibiting a decent yet light coffee-like nose, a malt essence brings out a warm toffee and nutty aroma.

The flavor of the stout is malt forward, with a medium-light bodied essence of coffee, toffee, and, well to put it mildly a certain, um, “earthiness.”

This beer is not my favorite. A decade or so ago I would have been loving this beer, as it’s not too far off from a Newcastle Brown Ale, but with a little more bitterness. There are a lot of much better, locally brewed beers available, and thus I do not see myself purchasing another bottle of this particular beer.

Prost.