Oliver and Geoff

Dry. Guinness. What else can we say? Also see our review of Beamish Irish stout in the draught can.

A rich, fruity beer. Good for a novelty, but not something you'd drink often. Gets 2.5 stars for the beer and 0.5 stars for the HUGE alcohol content.

Good effort, boys. Interesting beer, but not outstanding beer. This is more fruity than Grand Ridge's 11% beer Supershine.

A very well-balanced beer with just the right amount of body and sweetness and a nice residual bitterness. Would have scored 4.5 stars, but for poor head retention.

A roasty stout made with a lager yeast. The yeast would account for its clean, crisp taste, lack of fruitiness and light body for its alcohol content. An ale yeast would lift this beer into five-star territory, where Cooper's Best Extra Stout sits.

While these were being poured, one of the ladies inquired: “Is that a hot chocolate?” Geoff believes: “It is a hot chocolate. I'm not sure if it's too sweet. Perhaps I should sit down one afternoon and drink a shitload of it and see if I get sick of it!”
It's got a cratered head like the surface of the moon. Sweeter than Guinness draught, but in appearance these are identical beers, even down to their color, opacity and silky smoothness in the mouth. However, perhaps the head of the Guinness is a shade darker. The alcohol content is even the same.

Fantastic-looking beer in a great bottle, which has “Young's Ram Brewery, London, England” and a sheep embossed in the glass. The label looks like it hasn't changed since the Sixties. Geoff: “It's a lovely stout. It tastes like breakfast.” Fabulous head. Lamahl sang Neverending Story, we drank the beer with the neverending head. Not particularly bitter, but a beautiful stout.

Incidentally, on the Young's website the only oatmeal stout mentioned is a 5.0% beer “brewed by Young's exclusively for sale in United States”. Where does this beer fit in then?

Matured in the bottle at the brewery for six months before release. This produces a much more subtle stout, with less bitterness and softer flavors than the robust Cooper's Best Extra Stout that it was six months prior. Quite sweet. Nice enough, but could do with a bit of bitterness. Very smooth, with fine carbonation. An easy-to-drink stout. Apparently aimed at the female stout drinker and stout novices, and it may well entice them (although do many women really like stout?).

Geoff: “Not a patch on Newcastle Brown on tap. On tap it's thick and creamy and Newcastle Brown in the bottle is all thin and sinewy. I think it's nice, I don't mean to criticise it, I just think it compares very unfavorably to that on the tap.”

Oliver considered that perhaps it loses its lustre after the first few mouthfuls and starts to seem a bit watery. Interestingly, another beer with this unfortunate trait is Carlton Cold, although these beers are not in the same league by any stretch.

A beautiful-tasting, very low bitterness stout, which makes for an easy-drinking stout. Geoff considered it perhaps a little too sweet for his palate. The meagre alcohol content reflects the fact that this was once given to nursing mothers and the infirmed to help keep their energy up. The sweetness comes from the addition of lactose, a non-fermentable sugar.

Incredibly fruity and holds its head very well. But after the Chimay Blue, it's a disappointment, which is not to criticise, because anything after Chimay Blue is a disappointment.

Has a cratered head like the surface of the moon. Rich, bitter and potent taste. The bitterest stout ever, we said at the time. And it's opaque. This is definitely not a stout to quaff, but it's an excellent, very stout, stout. Oliver said: “If you were to eat a redgum table, it would taste like this.” What he meant, no one could ever be sure.

A retasting eight years later resulted in a rating of three stars:
Why are all beers from this brewery 4.5% alcohol? It has the taste of a malt-extract brew about it.
Oliver: “What rating does this stout get?”
Geoff: “Is that a stout?”
(It should be noted that this tasting was conducted fairly late in the day (this was the 28th tasting for the session, in fact) and Oliver and Geoff were at the time preoccupied with comparing beer guts.)

The thick sediment of yeast sticks fast to the bottom of the bottle and gives this delicious dark ale a very yeasty nose. Despite this there is little yeast taste. A magnificent, bitter dark ale.

A subsequent retasting eight years later wasn't as kind:
Smells of yeast. And an ashtray.
A dark, well-balanced, chocolatey beer.
Oliver rated this beer 3.5 to 4 stars. Geoff and guest reviewer Gav weren't so keen, and gave it 2.5. The final score is, therefore, a rounded-down average of 2.

Has the typical sweet, crisp nose of a lager. A good, solid German-tasting beer, with a light body, although perhaps a bit too light for our tastes. This was very cold when we first sipped it, and as it warmed up, chocolate and caramel notes emerged.

We were initially told that the spelling of “peculier” was medieval.
However, we are now informed that a peculier is a parish outside the jurisdiction of a diocese. Evidently, Old Peculier is named after the peculier of Masham.

Geoff: “An early contender for Beer of the Year. Sooooo malty, with a very,very late bitter finish. Lisa said that it tasted like malty dish washing water!?!” Rating: 5 stars
Oliver: “Fabulous dark, dark copper/brown color. Malty, hoppy nose and a finely beaded, long-lasting head. A hint of chocolate (and maybe some fruit cake?) in a very bitter beer with a long, long, long bitter finish. In fact, I think I may still have the bitterness in my mouth when I wake up in the morning! An excellent beer.”

Geoff: An intriguing red beer. Watch out for the VB Police! (Watch this space for this great story.) Rating: 3.5 stars (3 for the beer, ½ for the look)
Oliver: More like pink beer! Loved the ring-pull cap. How many beers in the world still have this after Cooper's in South Australia dropped it in the mid-90s? (In fact, as visitor Brady March points out, West End, also in South Australia, continued using ring pulls into the early '00s.) This is a very bitter beer, but there's not a great deal going for it. Rating: 1.5 stars

Geoff: Nup. No good. This beer is the weakest link. Goodbye. Rating: 2 stars.
Oliver wasn't quite so harsh: A lovely copper color and a sweet, malty nose. It's not particularly bitter, so India Pale Ale is probably somewhat of a misnoma. Head clings all the way down the glass. Maybe a tad watery. In its defence, this bottle was dusty when I bought it from Dan Murphy's in East Malvern, Melbourne, so I suspect it was not particularly fresh. Perhaps I should travel to Scotland and try it closer to the brewery! Rating: 2.5.

Geoff: A pretty good ale, but nothing outstanding. One dimensional. Three stars.
Oliver: A very nice, malty ale. Has a brown-bronze color and beautiful floral aroma. Full of flavor with a nice bitterness. Three and a half stars.

Geoff: Described as a “craft beer”, it was, alas, a bit light weight. Lovely head, though. Rating: 3 stars
Oliver: Good, long-lasting, tight head. Lacks color (it's more the color of a dark ale). Quite bitter, but a bit of a letdown, despite the label proclaiming: “Soft malt-sweet character balanced with distinct bitter notes. Natural substance and body balanced with smooth flavor.” There's a great deal of bitterness but not much flavor here. This is a prime example of an imported beer being passed off as something special when in fact it is really nothing special. Ireland can keep it; there are plenty of stouts like this around the world for the cost of a locally made beer. Rating: 2.5 stars

Geoff: If Maggie Beer's Burnt Fig Jam was a beer, it would be Dogbolter. A bit thin of head, but whopping of flavour. Rating: 3.5
Oliver: Almost exactly the same colour as Theakston Old Peculier (they were tasted by Oliver in succession) and with a more foamy head. The head is also long-lasting. Chocolate on the nose. Harsh hop character, probably from the use of the dreaded Pride of Ringwood hop, or is it the dark grains imparting that astringency? Tastes like a homebrew. Also tastes like the Hahn Millennium Ale. OK, but nothing to write home about. Rating: 2.5

Retasting on August 8, 2004
Matilda Bay Brewing had recently reformulated this beer, making it more like the beer that it began life as.
COMMENTS: Geoff: “Like an iced coffee.” Tastes like dark chocolate. “Probably better as an afternoon beer than a morning beer,” says guest reviewer Gavan.