Nirvana: Dark and Rich Stout (May Also Be called Kosmic Stout) (England: Low Alcohol: 0.0% ABV)
Visual: Black, with red hues at the edges. Still body. A thin gray dash of a head.
Nose: Musty. Wet cardboard. Wet teabags.
Body: Wet teabags. Iced tea. Nutty. Chalk touch. Mild liquid chocolate. Wort.
Finish: Wet teabags. Tannins. Lightly nutty. Slight chocolate. Wort. Mild coffee comes out very late on in the beer.
Conclusion: This is a stout? Wait, I’ll go one further, this is a beer? Wait I’ll go further, this is not considered cruel and usual punishment if served to prisoners? Going back to the first question, they do realize there is more to a stout than just being dark, right?
This is utterly dominated by low alcohol tells. There are so many tea bag notes, and iced tea tells, and even worse this generic wort mash just mehness that fills so much of the beer. Again this is in something called a stout. It feels very artificial and raw, as if it only got half way through the brewing process. Which, considering the abv makes sense, but not in a good way.
Over time you get a generally nutty character, even some melted chocolate notes, but they are pushed so far below the general wort like character that it really isn’t worth the effort to excavate them.
The wort character gives it a rough edge, that oddly even feels like an alcoholic rough edge in an ALCOHOL FREE DRINK. This is either impressive or a crime so bad it should be punishable by death.
So, erm, this barely counts as a stout so calling it one feels like false advertising. It is also terrible as any kind of beer.
Avoid it. It is shit.
Background: Ok for once I will open up with the music I listened to while drinking this, as I have since realised I 100% should have gone with Nirvana Nevermind. I did not. Instead I went with Ulver : The Assassination of Julius Caesar, which is awesome as most Ulver is. Anyway, this is another one from Light Drinks from the batch I grabbed. Not tried any from Nirvana before, but I have seen them advertise a lot of Facebook. This may or may not be a good sign. Stouts seems especially hard to do in low alcohol beers, though a day before having this I tried another stout from that Light Drinks batch that was amazing. However I did not do notes. I must try to grab another can to do. It was spot on. Not much else to add – This is listed on the bottle as Dark and Rich Stout, but everything I can see online suggest that this is the same beer as their Kosmic Stout even though I couldn’t find that name on the bottle. I may be wrong though. From the ingredients list it seems actual chocolate was used to make this. Also “natural favourings” which is an ever usefully vague term.
