Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Exotic Beer Weekly (EBW) - This Week Murphy's Stout


This Week - Murphy’s Law ($16 per 4-pack o' cans)
 
Drinking beer out o’ a can has bothered me ever since I was a wee lad. Something about it just feels a wee bit off. I've never liked it. I can always taste an almost metallic flavour. But hey, that’s just me. I’ll never be able to reconcile my differences with those who enjoy drinking out o’ a can, just like Northern Ireland and the Republic o’ Ireland will never be able to reconcile their differences. 
 
Speaking of Ireland, This week’s EBW (Exotic Beer of the Week) marks my first visit to the United Kingdom, taking me to the land o’ the potato-eating, river-dancing, Guinness-skulling Irish. It’s also my first stout: Murphy’s Irish Stout.

Murphy’s seems like a pretty standard stout. Black as coffee, with a creamy head about an inch thick when I poured it into a cup. When I first drank it out o’ the can, I was prepared to give Murphy’s an extremely low rating. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t like stout, or if Murphy’s was just a bad example of a stout. However, as you, my dearest and fondest reading few, well know, I have an extreme prejudice against drinking from cans. 
 
When I eventually found a clean cup into which I could pour, and subsequently drink it from, everything changed. What I thought was bitter and foul as an Irish winter, was actually sweet and flavourful, perhaps due to the use of chocolate malt. It’s actually very easy to drink, quite dry, with almost no carbonation, and much less bitter than Guinness. Like a leprechaun guards his pot o’ gold, I found myself coveting the last wee drops o’ the final can, to savour what I had come to enjoy for just a bit longer. Oh yeah, and it comes in 500ml cans. What is this, you may ask? This, my friend, is a pint. [Almost, a pint is 568mL, but I see what he was trying to do - Ed]

I award Murphy’s Irish Stout 3.5 potatoes out of 5.

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