The taste is strong and smooth. There is a chocolatey sweetness to it. This is not Hershey’s chocolate, this is like the stuff that my mother-in-law brough back from Estonia: rich, smooth, bittersweet and nutty. The taste sticks with you and finishes pretty much the same way it starts except that the bitter goes away. I remember drinking this with Dave and Brian back in the day and all of us being literally blown away and adding it to the top of our mental best-beers-of-all-time list.

I would love to get your thoughts on this beer as long as you are 21 or over. Please comment below and don’t forget to rate it!

I tasted chocolate, roasted nuts, coffees, ashtrays, cigarettes and cigars in this disappointing offering. Particularly at $4.00 per bottle, I was expecting this to be on par with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. I admit that the bar is set very high by my special occasion beer, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, but Young’s comes in at about .35 cents more for a single bottle. At the price point, I think it is OK to expect more.

Don’t get me wrong. Young’s Oatmeal Stout has some excellent qualities. It drinks a little more like a saspirilla than a beer. It has a certain hint of latte sweetness and the toasty flavor is quite delicious unless you happen upon the ashtray aftertaste. I hope that was an aberration as I clearly am not much a tobacco guy. This is disappointing in an i-was-expecting-it-to-get-into-harvard-and-it-is-going-to-babson way, not a my-honor-student-got-a-DUI-and-knocked-up-his-girlfriend way.