Guinness Foreign Extra (Guinness)

7.5%ABV Guinness, my my.

Inky as a school blackboard's heart and chocked forth with hazy roast and dark fruit aroma, this promises much. The taste is a pitchy swirl of coffee and bitter chocolate . It's texture is a sliding silky wonder, and although creamy, doesn't insulate the tongue against the orchestra of flavours on offer. Butterscotch and a mild pleasant ash rise and fall, and the notes are complex and mature.

The length is bitter with a fading smoke, like the final railway scene of 40's film where love doesn't win the day. Wonderful beer and surely the best in the Guinness range.

9/10 - Outstanding stout from those who should know. Smoky and authentic.

- The Broadside

Guinness Original (Guinness)

The Bunker takes on one of the leviathan products of the century. I grew up (well, from my teens) with guinness on draught - although don't touch it these days. So how does this 4.2%abv classic shape up?

It pours a deep, dark brown rather than pitch black. The nose is a little odd for a stout, a sort of metallic hobnob aroma. It's not unpleasant and the coffee coloured head foams away for a bit.

The texture is thin and prickly rather than fizzy, rather watery compared with some of the other fine stouts on these pages. First taste is a clatter of smoky aluminium, with a not displeasing soil over-note. The sup tends to veer to dry in the tail, with mild hop bittering and a little acidity.

It's not unpleasant and I found myself galloping through it quite briskly. The problem is it's lacking depth, and for me a stout should be rich and, well, stout in character, which this doesn't achieve.

Between this and mainstream lagers I'd go for this. Between this and most other offerings in these pages I'd opt for the heartier stuff.

6/10 - Beats it's draught brother easily but too thin and unexciting for the stout class.

- The Broadside