This was quite a rare beer for me. I've had beers that have been brewed with fruit flavors before, but most of those were essentially wheat or lighter beers. The Ebulum however, it's basically a stout... so this beer began life as a malty and roasted dark beer. Generally, when I drink a stout or dark beer I don't think to myself, "You know what this beer needs? Some fruit extract..." but I then I'm not Scottish. So here we have the Ebulumn Elderberry Black Ale from Scottland, a pitch black beer that smells like a coffee stout and promises an experience reminiscent of red wine. At least that's what the marketing on the bottle says, which to me is reminiscent of a load of bull... After drinking a pint of this beer I can say the comparison between this black ale and a glass of red wine is tangential at best. If you're not familiar with elderberries, the taste is tart and tannic. The elderberry tannens don't make it through the brewing process in any remarkable amount, I took me the petty part of a pint to pick up on them.
