David Friesen offers a Guinness alternative: China's Blue Diamond Stout.

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Blue Diamond Stout review
Submitted by David Friesen

The third of my new beer medley was Blue Diamond Stout. Again in a 350ml can, this dark stout beer has decent alcohol content at 4.7% abv and is allegedly brewed in Southern China. I say allegedly because the can is all in Chinese apart from the words "Stout Beer", so I had to take someone else's word for it.

I know that the Blue Diamond brand is quite popular in the South of China and can also be found in quite a few shops in Beijing too.

Although this is a stout beer, I wasn't expecting anything of Guinness or Wrassler's proportions. I poured the beer and was met with a slightly watery dark malted brew with quite a strong alcohol smell. One thing that the Chinese brewers have not learnt to do well yet is to brew beers with higher alcohol contents that don't immediately smell or taste strongly of alcohol.

Despite the lack of refinery, the malt taste was good and the beer was nicely rich. It reminded me of a pint of English mild, but with a much stronger alcohol taste – not that the alcohol taste was particularly unpleasant or anything.

Blue Diamond Stout is definitely not the most refined stout I have had and there are probably better in China.

However, it is reasonably good and the rich malty taste is a welcome change from some of the bland lagers around. I will definitely be buying it again in the future.

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