Ellis Island XXX Stout

Brewed by Ellis Island Casino & Brewery
Style: Stout
Las Vegas, Nevada USA

Draught at the brewpub
Dark brown color. Very simple brew, mild (and Mild), with a lot of caramel and no roasted malt. Inoffensive.

on tap-pours a tan head and mahogany color. Aroma is some sour?, roasty, chocolate? Taste is some sour?, roasty, earthy, cardboard. Light side of medium body.

Some color, darker black than the dark at least. Nose of chocolate, coffee and a bit of turpentine & roasted roadkill. Finishes a bit toasty & doughy like a shot of raw flour in the mouth. Full bodied, plastic palm trees and fromica are filling my thoughts. This is Bob Hope’s turf!

50% tan, solid head on black. Mild coffee aroma. Smooth and vaguely sweet with a light bitter finish. Average.

Thick and black. Trace of sourness. Good amount of roasted malt. No dominant flavours. Sweetness in the middle. Moderate finish. Very drinkable (is that like saying "she has a great personality"?). Trifle too cold.

The only full beer I tried on my trip to the brewpub, I decided to splurge and pay the $1 since I am a fan of Stouts. I guess it was worth the dollar. Served way too cold first of all. Pours almost black with a creamy light beige head. Thin sheet of lacing on the glass. The aroma is mildly roasty, with some coffee present. Medium-bodied and on the carbonated side. Mundane flavor as with the other Ellis Island beers, slightly nutty with some malt and hops. The finish is crisp for a Stout, not very hoppy or bitter - just crisp. Probably the best you can do at this casino but still a barely average beer. What a waste of a 'XXX'.

Yikes! What can I say? Usually a stout is a pretty fail-safe endeavour for any brewer. Not so, apparently. This suffers from the same problem I found in all the Ellis Island brews-- too sweet and sticky, very unbalanced. I suppose it could be classified as a sweet stout, but even then it fails to impress. Almost no aroma (or maybe it’s the smokey casino killing whatever aroma there may be), roasted and chocolate malt are lost in the unbalanced sweetness. I left 3/4 of the pint sitting on the bar (and that’s saying something!).

Aroma has notes of cola, caramel, and a touch of roast. Pours cola brown with a Þhin beige head. Caramel and roast with a cola sweetness. Some late roast. Very thin bordering on watery.