Oskar Blues says:
“Old Chub is the beer equivalent of a lightly smoked single malt scotch, or your favorite dark chocolate. We call it Rocky Mountain Mutha’s Milk. People who tell us defiantly, “I don’t drink dark beer,” often fall deeply in love with Old Chub. We can’t blame them.”
Oskar Blues Old Chub
Scottish Ale, 8% ABV
My exposure to craft beer in cans has been fairly limited. I’ve had Half Acre’s Daisy Cutter & Gossamer out of tall boys, and frankly preferred them over the same beers out of a bottle or on draft. I also had a chance to sample Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale. But all of those are somewhat lighter beers – beers you would expect to be good in a can. Up until this can of Old Chub, a Scottish Ale, I had never had anything with a higher ABV (8%). I’m not going to lie – I was skeptical. I didn’t really think a higher ABV beer and something that leans toward the darker side could be good out of a can. I was wrong.
Old Chub (love the name) pours a dark brown in color with streaks of ruby red highlights. As you can see in the photo above a few fingers worth of khaki head rest atop this beauty. Sweet malts, dark fruits, raisins and a touch of booze are in the nose of this beer. Now THIS is what a Scottish Ale should taste like; loads of sweet malts, plums, black cherries, cocoa and raisins. This is balanced, rich and very sweet, but not overly sweet. There is just enough of a hop profile to keep these from being cloying.
This has easily crept its way in to my top three of Scotch and Scottish Ales alongside Dark Horse’s Scotty Karate and Alesmith’s Wee Heavy. Oskar Blues absolutely nails the style and turned a skeptic of big and bold canned craft beers in to a believer.