Nøgne Ø Havrestout

Are you waiting for someone?

Why not drink a stout in the park? At night? By yourself? From the bottle?

.. what do you mean, alcoholic?

I'll have you know I selected this specifically for its low alcohol (4.5%) and to see if those prodigies from Nøgne Ø could succeed in a quest I must admit I found unlikely: to make a full flavoured, easy drinking stout for the masses at a low ABV.

The nose is pleasant but introverted here and to be honest, the beer itself is more of the same. Light coffee, sultana, it's none of it unpleasant but a little fizzy in the mouth. I feel Nøgne have succeeded in producing a stout here that avoids some of that 'empty', watery character that plagues a lot of lighter efforts. In doing so however they've hit up against the reality of the limitations of such a lightweight body and produced a beer that arguably, fails to deliver some of the real pleasures of darker beers.

This beer may be an OK gateway introduction to those unaccustomed to the world of stout, but personally I think it's more the stigma attached to dark beers, rather than their alcohol content that really puts people off. 6.5