Dragon Stout

Brewed by Desnoes and Geddes (Diageo PLC)
Style: Foreign Stout
Kingston, Jamaica

248 Ml Bottle-Trade w/DragonStout. Pours black w/no head. Sweet malt aroma. Very sweet flavor for a stout, even a sweet stout. Flavors of chocolate, molasis, cane sugar, & black licorice. This stuff was very different from most Stouts, but it was quite good; a nice change of pace. Matched up well w/a late night sweet cigar, an Acid Blonde! Would like to say I planned that pairing, but it was total luck; had no idea how sweet this stout was until I started drinking it. Made me want another one, but I didn’t have one!! Couldn’t drink it all the time, but a good after dinner brew/nitecap. It was so good, I was surprised to see it was a "Red Stripe" product!! Thanks to the beers "namesake" for this one, turned me on to a good brew I might have never tried on my own-that’s the best part of trading!!

Pours a bubbly black, almost identical to coke. Aroma is mostly malts, chocolate, some coffee, very, very sweet smelling, roasted malts are extremely evident. It looks highly carbonated. The taste is extremely sweet, almost too sweet, it’s a mix of so many things: chocolate, candy, black licorice, molasses, and corn syrup. I can enjoy almost all the flavours, but the corn syrup in combination with the alcohol is a threat to my own personal taste. The "priming sugar" definitely makes its presence known throughout, and tends to dominate the over-all flavour. The aftertaste is of course highly sweet, but not offensively. I can’t really make up my mind about this stout...I like the complexity, but good god is it ever sweet, especially when it warms, it would be exponentially better with more bitterness, or just less sugar. EDIT: This 3 year old bottle I left in my cellar is actually more tolerable than the first one I had that I rated. Sweetness is almost toned down and the booze is definitely more mellow. Still not very good, but I find it at least consumable now.

Dark brown color, short brown head. Aroma of typical sweet stout, heavy roasted malt, coffee, rye, some molasses, vanilla. Way too sweet taste, sugar all over the place. Only some malty bitterness around.

330ml bottle. Wow, yeah i’ll say sweet stout. This was so sweet, and cloying, it had to be an off bottle. no hops, just sugary sweetness. yuck.

Aroma’s a bit like treacle. Malty sweet flavor with no real hops to speak of. Ends up tasting a bit flabby.

Pours dark with a tan head. Aroma of vanilla, molasses and chocolate. Flavor is overly sweet but not to the point of being offensive. Needs balance, but is a decent brew.

Dark Brown with Sandy Ring. Coffee Roasts, Chocolate and Vanilla Aroma. Medium Bodied. On the Tongue....Nice Coffee Roasts, Along with Nicely Balanced Chocolate and Vanilla. Even Keeled and Hearty. Overall a Nice Stout.

Bottle. Solid black appearance and poor head retention. Coffee is the first aroma out of the gate, followed by slight nuances of molasses and chocolate. Easygoing palate. The flavour is three-packs-of-sugar sweet, tasting somewhat like a glass of cola with a drop of coffee and cocoa powder dropped in. Could use more coffee or wood effects to help balance the sweetness, but is fun nonetheless.