Bottle. Nice brown/red color. Really clear. Aroma is sweet with lots of malt and caramell but also some bready notes. Taste is a bit thin with nice malts and a nice touch of caramel. A bit hoppy for the style. Good!

Sale for $2 at Sam’s. Bottle says expiration date was a month ago, but it tasted fine to me. Deep copper pour with off-white head. This is a rich, malty brew; surprising hop presence for a Scottish ale. I thought it was much sweeter than the "slightly sweet" description, but also bitter and surprisingly fruity (figs, apricot jam, maybe some orange). Malt is still the dominant flavor though; on the biscuity/toffee side. A bit more alcoholic tasting than expected. Tasty brew.

(Bottle, Monk’s Café, Stockholm) Reddish brown colour with huge, frothy, beige head. Malty nose with toasted grain, hints of apricot marmalade and caramel, but mainly malty. Malty, slightly toasty taste with notes of orange peel, caramel, toffee and spicy hops in a fairly bittersweet finish. Balanced malt sweetness dries out towards the end. Lovely balance, nice beer.

Bottle that was in my Cropredy swapbox from Craig at Cropredy Festival 2008, cheers Craig Poured looking quite wonderful, chesnut in colour with great clarity and a nice white head. I tasted this straight after some Pannepot and Pannepot Grand Reserva which I suppose was a little unfair as the first taste immediately flagged this up as being nowhere near as refined or complex as the previous two, but putting that aside this is clearly a very different beer. I’m immediately swamped with a bit mouthfull of sweet rustic molasses and a sort of crunchiness, theres toffee, its soft in the mouth and really quite full flavoured but lacking a little in complexity. Its fruitiness and toffee surge through again and I like this but felt that it could have been even better.

Strong beer. Dark roasted malt, caramel sweet. Fruity and nutty. Not very carbonated. Recommended to drink at room temperature.