Lion Stout

Brewed by Lion Brewery (Ceylon)
Style: Foreign Stout
Nuwara Eliya & Biyagama, Sri Lanka

Extremely creamy and adherent head, optimal persistence. Black intense color, impenetrable and decidedly dense. Optimal and typical aspect. Strong and decided scent: burnt malt/wood, liquorice, coffee and alcohol notes. Powerful and solid taste with rumors of torrefy coffee, withered grape and licorice. Alcoholic and decidedly powerful with a much bitter final of good persistence.

Bottle. Black colour with a creamy head. Aroma and flavour of chocolate, nuts and notes of alcohol.

11.2oz bottle. Solid stout but i wasn’t wowed by it nor was i expecting to be. Light brown head. Standard malty-chocolate aroma and sweetishflavor. Couldn’t really notice any hop sensation. Mildly carbonatted. The 8% abv was well hidden and overall it went down smoothly.

Black, a bit of brown glow. Generous tan layer that leaves a viscous lacy ring and lingers all the way through the glass. Aroma is exotic and complex: raisins lead, with smokey molasses and a bit grilled meat. Almonds, cola. Heavily black roast flavor, creosote, smoke, but a surprisingly dry, utterly clean finish, that is almost refreshing (quite a feat for such a strong dark beer). Lots of sparkle to the mouthfeel, but fine textured and not aggressive. Been looking for this one for quite some time--fun to finally get to try it. I have to give this a bonus points for having a good story; the treacherous mountain journey to get ingredients to the brewery. Then the treacherous journey to get this bottle from Sri Lanka, to Aarhus, Denmark where I found it, to London (narrowly escaping a last minute baggage weight purge--other bottles were not so lucky), coach to Oxford, to Woodstock, to my glass, which I raise back to these intrepid brewers.

Thanks to Slob. Black, thick, fluffy brown head. This has some good carbination, and as it settles the aroma of roasted caramel malts and chocolate wafs up to greet me. Thick mouth feel, and a good amount of roasted, almost burnt bittering joins in. There is the taste of dark fruit adds some complexity. This is an excellent stout, as good as the first time I tasted this.

Extremely dark, with no head to speak of at all. In fact, the beer was a little flat. Get some fruit in the nose with the chocolate. Full flavored, but still light on the palate. Very good.

Did I get a bottle of something else? Kept rolling it in my hands, making sure that indeed was from Sri Lanka - check. One of those times my expectations were not met. Not saying that here was anything at all bad about this, and in some erspects that’s VERY gopod. Still, found it not to be dense nor very complex, just wasy drinking, which at 8% says something. Perhaps my tongue is tired. I know I’m tired and so is this description.

Clear and very dark red with a creamy tan head. Sour, dark chocolate, raisen and coffee aroma. Medium bodied with a silky mouthfeel. Chalky, roasty flavor with some burnt astringency, some sweetness and a mild bitter finish. Lightly tart also.