Orkney Dark Island (Bottle)

Cask conditioned at The Dun Cow, Hornton, Oxon. Dark black beer with light tan head. Super burnt coffee notes, challenging to the tongue with an earthy, peaty, woody combination goung on in the background. Chunky bitterness on the tongue, a good full bodied beer.

Bottle. Pour was cloudy and dark with off-white head. Aroma was roasted ? almost burnt. Taste was earthy. Mouth feel was bit on the thin side. Nice beer, IMO.

Bottled. Dark ruby red colour, mediumsized creamy head. Chocholate, weak roasted malt and flowery sweet aroma. Flavour is caramel and roast with some weak bitterish notes. Chocolate strong in finish and aftertaste. Wellbalanced and pleasant thing from Orkney Brewery.

Poured from a bottle into a thistle glass, this beer is a cloudy, dark brown with a thin tan head. The aroma is strikingly peaty, along with toffee, fruit, and malt aromas. It’s very drinkable, starting malty and fruity and developing into a strongly peat-flavored, smoky, and noticeably sour complex of flavors which blend nicely with the hops at the finish. A bit watery at some points of the flavor profile, and the mouthfeel is only ordinary, but the flavor is quite nice. Not one I’d want to drink often, but this distinctive brew goes quite well with cajun style black eyed peas, for example.

The aroma is chocolate, coffee, and heavily toasted malt. The appearance is super dark brown (close to black) with a small but persistent head. The flavor is not complex but it is good. I taste toasted malt, chocolate, and coffee. The palate on the other hand could stand to be thicker. Overall it’s good.

I lovedthe intial aroma in this beer, but unforualty the falls a bit short. The taste has traces of cocoa, and coffee and a mild tobacco-like flavor. Palate’s a bit thin. after-taste give a dark chocalte bar. still very good though

Pours a nice deep dark reddish brown color. Big roast malt aromas with hints of smoke/coffee/chocolate. Flavor is a dark smokey chocolate with the slightest tingle of hops.

For a 5% beer this was very smoky, oily, and peaty. Abundant but fine carbonation. Very soft, medium-heavy mouthfeel. Body is dark and murky. Nutty notes. Some fruitiness or acidity might have balanced this out a little better. Very nice, but somewhat overwhelmingly peaty.