United Nations of Beer

Peg Leg stout

by Dominic Perry
(Beer Delegate, MD, USA)

Peg Leg stout
Clipper City Brewing, MD, USA

Clipper City Heavy Seas Peg Leg stout. With a title this clever, you’d hope that Clipper City would put some money into their beer.

Unfortunately, when you taste this thin, runny joke of a stout, you realize that all the money went into the title. This "stout" is brought to you by Clipper City Brewing, which in turn owns Heavy Seas brewing company, which produces Peg Leg stout. Wow!

According to their website, Peg Leg is "A dry Imperial stout, with rich black color and aromas of roasted coffee, molasses, dark chocolate, toffee and caramel. Rich, powerful, and lingering."

I’ll give them this, it does linger, but not in a good way! Oh, it may smell of coffee and molasses, but it sure as hell doesn’t taste like it.

At best, this is really dark brown ale. Maybe if Clipper City wasn’t busy trying to run Heavy Seas they could’ve made something decent. Instead, they 'crafted' this stuff.

Imperial Stouts are, by definition, dry with hints of chocolate and coffee. They were originally brewed in England at a (now closed) brewery called Barclays brewery.

Like IPAs, stouts were brewed extra strong so they would survive an overseas voyage. Initially they were a big hit in Russia but have since been replaced by other varieties.

As for the Peg Leg stout, I tried this particular brew out of a bottle. Maybe I had an old bottle and that’s why there was little in the way of advertised flavor.

Anyway, it pours nicely, with a good head but minimal lace. By the end of the glass this stout has no head. There was a bit of a coffee flavor and some nice burnt currant (where the hell did that come from?).

However, the beer finished with a sweet flavor, which is odd because being an Imperial stout it should avoid being sweet. At this point, it goes without saying this is not a very good Imperial stout. The body was like a thick ale, which made it feel odd going down.

This should have been called Clipper City Heavy Seas Peg Leg almost-but-not-quite-decent, stout. It probably won’t fit on a bottle as well, but it's closer to the truth than its current title...