CulturAle Press

Belhaven Black Scottish Stout, Dunbar, Scotland

Date:  December 18, 2018

The Story— Belhaven’s Black Scottish Stout is a canned Nitro black stout brewed with locally sourced “triple malts” and Challenger hops.  It’s Belhaven’s first new product to hit the US Market in almost a half century.  Thicker and creamier than Guinness, but still only 4.2% ABV it’s part of a must do home Nitro comparison tasting.   The Nitro gives the beer a soft feel and an extra creaminess that Guinness has used for decades to make a slightly acidic and edgy beer pour with the smoothness of a baby’s blanket.

Belhaven is, by most accounts, Scotland’s oldest brewery dating to 1714.  It’s now owned by the British Greene King, but continues to brew at the original Scottish brewery.

The Beer— Creamy smooth with softly sweet roast and an end featuring a nice residual bakers chocolate.  Thicker feel than Guinness and nicely creamy.  Lots of flavor for a 4.2%.

Value — good to very good.

This week we feature a half dozen really good European beers that we’ve found on both sides of the pond.   We make pilgrimages to some of the best beer stores in Eastern America once or twice a year and we also just bump into incredibly good beer in places we don’t expect.  Not all of these are on the shelves, but beers much like them are.  A few of our European greats are from places you don’t expect to find great beer as we move closer to publication of our European guide to great beer in “bad” beer cities.   (Planned publication 2019.)

Next week we’ll begin our countdown to the New Year with a list of our ten best beers of the last five years.  We’ve found them on both sides of the Atlantic and even a few in our back yard.  We’ve been lucky to find some of our favorite beers researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.