Orkney Dragonhead Stout (Bottle)

Brewed by Orkney (Sinclair Breweries)
Style: Stout
Stromness, Orkney, Highlands & Islands, Scotland

Bottle @ Pullman, Helsinki Finland Backlog 2 April, 2005
Thin and well attenuated (BB11/05). No off tastes, though. Rather boring, actually. Maybe some roasted notes in the end.

poured a dark color w/ cascading look a large thick tan head good sticky lacing. Smelled fairly mild for a stout roasted malts light carmel and a hint of vanilla. Palate is over carbonated and overly thin. Flavor is very bland and weak a roasty almost smoked malt and not much else at all. Overall nothing special.

Bottle. A thin well balanced stout. Aromas of roasted malts and cherry wood. Black body tan head. Flavor was a weak roasted malts and little watery. Smooth easy drinkable beer. I would have to think the cask would be a great stout see the componants for a good stout are there.

Nice color, no light shone through. Light coffee notes and a sharp roasted bitterness. Very Irish for a Scottish beer. THere is smoothness that hints at sweet oatmeal and chocolate. NIce with fish and chips.

lightly salted syrupy aroma fades quick.dark brown with a creamy khaki head that leaves not a trace on any glass. choco roasted taste, nice medium body, fading with a bking coco aftertaste. descent stout.

A mythical, scaled creature hailing from the far North and East is always an eye catcher for an unassuming passerby, which is why when I saw a wooden dragon head peering out from the refrigerator at my local liquor dispenser I had to pick it up the bottle it was inescapably attached to. The glass frame is stockish and bullish, like a championship boxer’s coach, and gives the impression, unopened and untouched, of being a truly masculine brew. However, the texture disappoints, being somewhat "translucent" in the depth and breadth of its flavor. It pours thickly, with a fluid base of opaque brown and a tannish shade for a head. There’s nothing one could call artistic magestry in the overall appearance. It really is just a burly looking drink. The overall flavor is hard to discern for a newbie like myself, but I’d definitely call it smoky, with a subtle but welcome hint of chocolate. Most amazing was the disparity between smelling it out of the bottle and out of a glass. Completely different sensations hit my neighboring sensory nerves. I imagine this beer would be a great drink while doing hard agricultural work in a humid environment. Odd, but this might explain its Scottish origins. The Orkney Stout may be a nice parlor drink. You can’t drink it too fast without catching the suspicious glances of your friends. The environment has to be absolutely right. As I begin to sample the stout I find myself under a noisy barrage; my roommates are playing a raucous children’s game, but once I move to another room and start listening to a healthy round of the Russian Red Army Choir, the flavor and its contribution to the environment are enhanced. Drinking this heavy and hearthy beer I feel like a part of history, sunken into the ground with time and tale. If you plan on being light on your feet and witty do not drink the Orkney stout. It sort of sinks into the tongue and gut with an anvil heaviness - hence the aptness for sitting in a parlor and pontificating on European unification or some such weighty matter to the tune of a brazenly burly Scottish brew.

Poured a very dark brown, you could still see light through it. A thick brown head. Aroma was roasted malt with some coffee notes. Flavor was of roasted malts and a touch of coffee. This one was a bit watery as a stout for me.

500 ml bottle from Jonathan Ron. Pours a very bubbly bodied solid black with a large soapy beige head. The initial aroma was very nice, dark chocolate, vanilla exract, slight coffee. However just moments later that nice aroma changes too a very grassy, rotting flowers, plastic scent, ugh where did that nice initial aroma go?? The body on this one is very thin with super bubbly lively carbonatin, sort of lke seltzer. Flavor has some decent burnt and roasted malts with chocolate notes and grassy hops. All in all this beer was a let down.