Orkney Dark Island (Bottle)

Bottle. Pours good sized, light brown head. I’m usually not too fussy when it comes to beer. However, this ale was not very enjoyable. The smokiness tended to overpower the lovely malts in the brew. Not the best from a great brewery.

Dark, dark, darrrrk. There is so much roast malt in this! I find the aroma quite smokey, and the flavour wonderfully strong but not as complex as it might be. So, interesting and enjoyable for its extreme flavour, but not much else.

Sampled March 2007
Pours with a frothy, fully tan colored head that starts out about two-fingers thick. The beer is a very dark, almost black colored beer. There is an interesting spiciness here in the aroma, it is sort of cinnamon like (but not really) or perhaps a touch of clove (but again not really). Mainly the aroma is full of notes of chocolate, coffee, touches of molasses, some dusty chalk notes.

Fairly sweet up front, but then an interesting salty, smoky note becomes noticeable. So now that spicy note in the nose makes sense. Peat it is. The salty, smoky peat character couples with notes of chocolate and a host of (though in no way dominating) burnt characteristics (acidity, dusty burnt grain, and a touch of coffee). This is an interesting beer, I was not expecting this at all. The smoke actually adds something like sweetness, which couples with the residual malt sugars. This is quite a tasty brew, once again I am quite impressed with this brewery and of course I always love tasty, lower alcohol brews.

Bottle. Brown creamy and lasting head. Very dark red almost blak body. Fruity cocoa aroma. More cocoa than frutiy thoough. Strangely enoght the flavor is cocoa dominated. The heavy amount of carbonation makes this relatively low alcohol beer quite interesting. Mates is nn’t this what we want. Good tasting beer and the ability to drink a wide variety!

Bottled from Red Zebra, Derby. Not black, just very very very very deep red. SOme good sweet notes, light roastiness, chewy old fruits, wonderfully smooth.

Black colour ... roasted malt little smokeyness sone ... tiny bit burnt in nose ... lots of cofee especally in initial hit ... touch of fruity malt ... lots of roast malt ... touch burnt.

Pretty interesting stuff. this beer had a nice amount of spice and hops in the palate. I would give this another try.

not fruity, not chocolatey at all: very smokey---I felt like I was misled. Very little head and little lace was also disappointing. The Scots can do so much better--and I love a good scots. But for a smokey beer it was palatable. And there was plenty in the bottle to share a the Mar 2007 cincy gathering.