Friday-That-Became-Saturday Beer Tasting

This nearly settles it. I need a job where I can get paid what I make now, but not really do any serious work. There's got to be some sort of Corporate Drone job out there like that. My natural state is Slouch. All this working out, all this working hard, all this Marine Corps stuff...it is a state of mind that takes real effort every day to make happen. At my core, at my very essence, I am lazy. I buy office chairs that rock backwards so I can slouch. I sit on couches in the Slouch position. On a cloudy Saturday afternoon, like today, given the option to go out and "do," or something else, I choose Slouch. The only real reason I lift is so that I don't weigh 9,000 pounds and my wife won't get disgusted.

I Slouch, therefore I am.

And that pretty much sums-up this week's beer. Lazy.

Today's Saturday Aftrnoon Nap of a beer is Ceylon/Lion Brewery Ltd.'s Lion Stout.

No, no...don't get up.

The bottle itself is brown with a gold foil neck. Michael Jackson, not the dancer/singer/child-toucher MJ, but the beer enthusiast and self-proclaimed beer hunter, has a promo on the back of this bottle. I can only imagine that's because Lion paid him for it. Because they're too lazy to brew a beer that's truly great, they just pay him. Easier that way.

It pours an unfiltered black, with brown hues when held up to my light, which took lot of effort. Nothing remarkable here: a black stout with a tan head. Whooppee.

I smelled some roasted notes to it, but I had to try really hard to find that smell underneath a pretty standard and insipid beery smell. Nothing that really jumped out and smacked me here about the smell. It's like they were there, but totally contrived. Like....like a Yankee Candle. The one that smells like cookies. Why actually bake cookies when you can achieve the same smell by lighting a candle? Psha. Make cookies. Think of the effort.

This is supposed to be a sweet stout, but rides a quiet, indecisive ground between sweet stout and Irish dry stout...it can't make ups its mind because it really doesn't want to be anything, and thusly isn't. I do taste a sweet, malty brew that is smooth but unremarkable. It has all of the characteristics of a stout, but none of the effort of the truly great ones: malt, some roasted character, chocolate, molasses. It's all there, but it's all just...there. Like you on your couch staring at the t.v. All of the characteristics of greatness are there: you have a brain, a mouth, opposable thumbs...but no commitment.

This beer, at this point, reminds me of the chief comlaint levied againt me by all my highschool teachers: he's bright. We can see it. There's just no effort. That's this beer, all the way.

The beer finished metallic and dry, and there is an overarching oxidized characteristic to the beer (in this case, think wet wood). Lke the brewers knew what they were doing, but were a bit lazy and careless in producing a remarkable final product. They let a bit much air in.

My overall impression is that this is a pretty one-dimensional beer. Nothing remarkable. It meets all of the minimum requirements but never really shines as an amazing beer. It's like my highschool educational career. Enough to get by; even enough to get into a decent college. That's this beer: enough to be classified as a stout, but jut as s stout. Not a mind-blowing stout.

So ask someon to get you this stout from your fridge. Have them open it for you. Have them pour it into a glass. Or not. Take a sip of the beer. Ask them for their impression, because this beer will take away your ambition to do it yourself. Then go take a nap.