Wig & Pen Velvet Cream Stout

Brewed by Wig & Pen Brewery
Style: Dry Stout
Canberra, ACT, Australia

Draught (nitro dispensed) at the brewpub. Really black, creamy beige head. Fruity licorice aroma. Intense ans soldly malty with soft, creamy mouthfeel. Tarry, bitter finish. Unlike most nitro dispensed beers it doesn’t feel dead and stale, but rather fresh and complex.

Mine wasn't nitro unlike eczematics. Deep brown to black. Really nice stout. Smell of roasted malt and chocolate. very chcocolatey and roasty, with a soft, rounded mouthfeel. Some tart acidity surprisingly. Finish is bitter and rich. A lovely stout, one of my fave Aussie beers. Had at the Brissy Festival of beers.

had this on tap at the nfob03 and on nitro at the brewoub a week later and both times it was great stuff. very dark purple, initial flavour a strange mix of coffee and plum, though the plum died down. some strange all bran in the finish instead of bitterness. on nitro the aroma was a more pronounced coffee liqueur. tasted of chocolate and vanilla cream. low on hops but a lush, rich reward

Tried on tap in lovely Canberra. This one looked the goods, black body with a small but lasting light tan head and solid rings of lacing again. Burnt notes in the aroma with coffee and grains in the taste. Not too complex or anything ust very easy to drink.

I missed this by minutes at a beer festival a few months back when it ran out while I paddled in a pool of mediocre-to-crap lagers and pale ales. I was naiively saving this for later while smarter drinkers hoovered it up. I’m not surprised it went quickly because it’s a bit special. At the brewpub, it’s served nitrogenated at 4-6C, which is an improvement on 99.99% of pub serving temps but still seemed a fraction too cold. It arrived looking as black as the hole in Canberra where our tax dollars disappear. It comes with the sort of faultless tight, thick head that is typical of nitro. Great head length. It may have been the serving temperature but the aroma took time to fully develop. Essentially sweet and chocolatey, with the intensity of a dark chocolate liqueur and a solid roasted malt backbone. Fabulous full and creamy mouthfeel, like whipped cream. Very integrated flavour profile - coffee cream chocolates, chocolate ice cream, sweet milky coffee. Very much at the sweeter end of the dry stout scale - there’s nothing sharp about the flavours here. For a nitro, this may be as good as it gets. (Draught at brewpub with omhper)

nitro, which is annoying, but what a beer underneath. sure it’s a guinness clone, but it’s a great one. classic (if i’m allowed to decide what’s classic) dry stout aroma of crisp hops and ash. VERY full bodied. flavour is really nicely balanced between the burnt stuff, the malt sweetness, and a good amount of refreshing hop flavour. tastes like the same yeast as linc’s foreign extra which be the guinness yeast i think so no wonder. nice after-dinner mint aftertaste. if only this was on cask instead it could be incredible. rer8: 6% these days apparently, feels even bigger and fatter, except i looked back at my rating and said it was fullbodied anyway. a big stout, very roasty/bitter and chunky. quality.

Tap at the brew pub; nitro.

Clean easy-drinking stout, some chocolate, a bit of coffee and licorice, relatively sweet. Interesting fruit/spicy touches. Nice beer again; nothing exceptional but really solid.

Draught at Wig & Pen, Canberra. Pours dark brown with reddish hues and a creamy brown head that left a nice lacing around the glass. Coffee dominates the aroma with notes of cocoa as well. The flavour is roasted coffee (no surprise), dark chocolate and cream. Literally a velvet smooth mouthfeel and a pleasant lingering bitterness in the finish, which makes this a very easy drinker. Absolutely delicious.