Bare Knuckle Stout

Brewed by Anheuser-Busch InBev
Style: Dry Stout
St. Louis, Missouri USA

Completely underwhelmed. I should have known what this was...the name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. The bar I went to (an ironic trucker bar) said it was "like Guinness", which on its own sounded unappetizing, but the beer turned out to be way worse than Guinness. Oh well.

draft. nice looking, head lasts all the way down to the finish. didn’t get a lot of flavor from this. watery, bitter roast taste. couldn’t see drinking another.

Tap. Nitro beige head. Aroma is thin dark roast malt. Flavor is thin dark roast malt with a touch of hops. Very, very thin. On the upper edge of light bodied. I’d drink lots of this if it was free though.

draft. pours black with a thick tan head. has a nice roasted chocolate flavor. not real thick and pretty easy to drink.

On tap. Pours a dark brown with 2 finger tan head and very nice lacing. Nose is very light with roasted coffee and some malt. Taste is mild roasted coffee, malt and a touch of cocoa. Medium mouth feel. Tasted like a watered down Guinness. Not very good.

On tap at Davids. Smell of soda, minor alcohol, and stale coffee. Looks kinda like soda with less carbonation and very small brown cream border of head. Tastes also like flat soda with a little lemon, coffee, and weak roasted caramel malt, watery, slightly harsh on the palate. This is not a particularly good beer, though better than most made by this brewery solely because its not a lager, but at the same time it does not have the redeeming quality of it being easy to chug, so i almost am willing to put it on that same level.

This stuff is heinous, I don’t like Guinness and dry stouts are not my favrotie category especially on nitro, but this is absloutely horrid. How can people drink this crap. Acrid burnt chocolate roastiness. Over roasted to the point of being bitter and sour.

This is Guinness lite (and since Guinness is stout lite, I guess that makes this stout lite lite). It has the typical stout appearance - dark, opaque, fairly thick head. It also has the typical stout aromas and flavors, but they are so watered down as to be almost nonexistent, and this also prevents there from being any subtle nuances. There’s a basic, very mild coffee-ish roastiness (we’re talking cheap Folgers here, not a nice custom roast or anything even halfway decent), and a bit of hop bitterness going on, but that’s about it. If you’re in the situation I was in when I tried it (i.e. it’s either this or the typical Miller/Bud choices), then go for it. But if you can get damn near anything else, you’ll be better off.