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Lion Stout - Ceylon / Lion Brewery Limited

Not Rated.
Lion StoutLion Stout

Educational use only; do not reuse.
very good

878 Reviews

(Read More)
Reviews: 878
Hads: 1,533
Avg: 3.94
pDev: 15.48%
Wants: 64
Gots: 96 | FT: 0
Brewed by:
Ceylon / Lion Brewery Limited visit their website
Sri Lanka

Style | ABV
Foreign / Export Stout |  8.80% ABV

Availability: Year-round

Notes & Commercial Description:
Beer added by: BeerAdvocate on 07-28-2001

View: Beers (4) | Events
Beer: Reviews & Ratings
Reviews: 878 | Hads: 1,533
Photo of andrenaline
3.67/5  rDev -6.9%

A random score from the local LCBO...

A - Pours pitch black with a thumb of big bubbled cola looking head which quickly dissipates leaving no real lacing.

S - Burnt grains, dark cocoa and sugary sweetness with a lingering malted milk finish.

T - Dark cocoa, burnt toast, leafy greens, hint of burnt sugar sweetness and a touch of ABV heat. Finishes with the dark cocoa and ABV sweetness lingering.

M - Medium bodied, surprisingly sweet and finishes wet with a touch of heat.

O - Heavy of the burnt characteristics, but tasty nonetheless. The ABV is surprisingly well hidden, making it quite drinkable. I would buy this again and certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to drink it if the option were available.

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Photo of sweemzander
3/5  rDev -23.9%

12oz can poured into a snifter.

(A)- Pours almost pitch black in color. Some tan froth and lacing.

(S)- A raisin heavy roasted maltiness; almost smoky on the finish.

(T)- Again, quite heavy on the raisin with subtle molasses combined with an almost smoky but roasted malt profile.

(M)- A smooth carbonation level. A good malty balance that is a bit on the lighter side but plenty of flavor.

(O)- An easy drinking stout with smooth and mellow carbonation. Surprised this came in cans.

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Photo of soju6
3.87/5  rDev -1.8%

A: Pours a black color with a cramy head that fades to nice lacing.

S: Aroma of roasted malt, chocolate bit of coffee and dark fruit.

T: taste of roasted malt , chocolate and dark fruit. Nice bitterness and c clean finish.

F: Full body, rich creamy texture, very well balanced. It’s been years since I have had this but it still as enjoyable as ever.

O: Good beer the relax with at the end of the day. Well worth checking out.

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Photo of Beric
3.92/5  rDev -0.5%

Serving: 12oz can into tulip glass
Served: 3 June 13

Appearance: Incredibly dark. Thick. Pours with a magnificent four finger head that takes a long time to dissipate. Great lacing as the head slowly collapses to a small coating of light brown, frothy bubbles.

Smell: Smells rich and roasty. Dark, dark bitter chocolate and dark roasted coffee notes seem to jump out through the black thickness.

Taste: The dark, bitter chocolate and roasted coffee seems to really come out in the taste. Unfortunately, I'm also getting some metallic notes from the can, forcing the overall rating down lower than what it should be. Really smooth and goes down easy. You can kind of feel the 8.8% on the very very back end, long after a sip, but the high ABV is masked well by the pleasently complex flavor.

Mouthfeel: Smooth and creamy. Thick, just like a foreign extra stout should be.

Overall: Wow, a great beer, especially when you consider it comes from and island off the coast of India.

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Photo of maketheheartglad
4.85/5  rDev +23.1%

A - It's black with a chocolate milk head.

S - It's smells like dark fruit and rum.

T - It tatses like dried fruit, particularly prunes (which i like) and rum at the end.

M - It feels thick.

O - I love it. It is the best stout I've had so far. Sure I've had Guinness . I didn't enjoy Duck-Rabbit's milk stout. I liked North Coast's Old Rasputin, but I like this even more than the others it seems like I can tastes more things. Perhaps the flavors I perceive and enjoy will change in the future.

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Photo of TokyoCO
4.27/5  rDev +8.4%

Picked up a bottle in Japan, poured into a goblet.

A: Dark black with slight amber on the edges. Large head!

S: Sweet malts, milk chocolate, dark fruits. Quite a robust smell.

T: Starts off creamy and sweet, fruits are present. More bitter malts and slight chocolate/coffee taste is present in the middle. Ends with bitter chocolate and slight alcohol burn.

M: Creamy but not overly heavy.

O: This is good! No one taste is overwhelming as it is well balanced. Not as strong coffee and chocolate as a lot of stouts but the sweet malts and fruit are great. Definitely a sipper!

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Photo of GarthDanielson
3.93/5  rDev -0.3%

Poured from a bottle into a shaker pint, the beer is a dark, jet black coloring with a thick, dense, light tan head that starts a solid inch and a half, and settles into a filmy coating as you drink. Aromas of coffee, charcoal, bittersweet chocolate, and a hint of molasses. Very balanced aromas of savory and bitter, with highlights of smoke. Flavors of roast and nut on the forward tongue, with a milk chocolate backbone accented by charcoal and smoke. Very smooth flavors that are layered by subtle bitter and camp smoke characteristics. The beer remains smooth and fairly light in mouth, despite the rich and stereotypically heavy flavors. Roasted and smoky aftertaste, with a smooth, slightly dry finish. Very balanced and easily drinkable stout.

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Photo of Oakenator
4.27/5  rDev +8.4%

Pours a full black color with no opacity. Very thick head at pour relaxes to around the rim with a very healthy spotted lace on the glass. Aroma is dark, sweet malts with some dark chocolate presence and a hint of black licorice. Flavor is dominated by the dark malts - sweet up front with a mellowed backend.

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Photo of spoony
4.03/5  rDev +2.3%

From a 330 ml bottle (with a code that I can't decipher) into a snifter.

A-The brew pours heavily, but produces a tall (two-plus fingers) head of brown head. The head drops steadily into a hummocky cap. The beer is nearly black and opaque. Good looking stuff.

S-The smell is all dark, roasty malts. It is chocolatey and sweet up front, with a decent dose of sweet, dark fruit (dates and prunes) on the tail end. Some licorice flavor, as well.

T-The taste is more complex than the smell. There is still cocoa, licorice, sweet dark fruit, and just a hint of hop bitterness. The malts really dominate here in all of their dark, sweet, roasted glory. The booze creeps up on you; by the end of the glass, the alcohol is noticeably warm on the palate (in a good way) and more fragrant.

M-A little thin, with mild to moderate carbonation. Drinkable for the style and ABV.

O-I was not sure what to expect here, but I enjoyed this brew. One of my favorite aspects was that it was devoid of coffee/whiskey/brett/barrel-aged gimmickry, but still managed to produce a pretty full-flavored stout. This is not Parabola, and it isn't trying to be, but I sort of like that.

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Photo of wowbagger
3.59/5  rDev -8.9%

Super thick head, dark like a dirty carpet. Beer isn't black, but it's about the darkest brown I've seen,

Smell is yeasty and oaky, slightly sweet. Some sour coffee notes.

On the first sip, I'm getting a ton of coffee and some earthiness, none of the oak I smelled. Some chocolate further on. It's velvety and smooth. Well-balanced but not terribly complicated.

Overall, I would recommend this one.

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Photo of silverking
4.16/5  rDev +5.6%

A- It's pretty mush pitch black with a dark tan head. Head retention is poor. The ring of foam that remains leaves nice lacing down the sides of the glass

S- IT smells roasted, almost to the point of being smokey. notes of coffee, cocoa, ad caramel are first noticed in large quantities. Upon further inspection, dark fruits can be found.

T- Dark roasted coffee and caramel. A little smokey. The finish shows notes of dark cocoa and dark fruits, figs, black cherry.

M- Medium bodied with low amounts of gentle cabonation.

O- A big surprise from Sri Lanka.

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Photo of monkbrewed
3.81/5  rDev -3.3%

This is a chocolately beer overall, however it's that classic roasted chocolate malt with no real no real chocolate chocolate flavor so you're deceived. It has a good mouthfeel and has good focus of qualities, but lingers in too specific of a range to be considered a classic. Don't let this review fool you, it's a significant achievement from a region of the world that doesn't have a history in this style of beer. It was a Sri Lankan student of mine who recommended this to me and almost concurrently, I discovered it on on my own. Great beer from the south pacific. If you like Youngs Chocolate Stout you will like this as a dialed-back derivation.

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Photo of jmdrpi
3.88/5  rDev -1.5%

330mL bottle. there is a bottle code, but no clear date.

almost black in color, with thin khaki colored head. smell is a combination of roasty espresso notes and dark fruit- black cherry, plum. nice. the taste starts with bittersweet chocolate, and then finishes roasty and acidic. thicker bodied with lower carbonation. works well, pretty smooth drinking.

overall - a solid beer, good example of the style

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Photo of wvsabbath
3.97/5  rDev +0.8%

Serving Type - 22oz bottle






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Photo of TwelveOunces
4.25/5  rDev +7.9%

11.2 oz can poured into a snifter

A- Pours very motor oil black with a one finger of a frothy tan colored head. Decent head retention.

S- Roasty. A slight espresso and caramel note to it. Dry and woody. A slight dark fruit.

T- A light roastyness up front. A ton of caramel notes to this beer. It has a bunch of burnt caramel flavors that last the whole way down. A slight smokeyness and char character to this beer. Almost like a smore. This beer has a Slight dark fruit and fruity ester to it. A bit of a sugary caramelized raisin or fig.

M- A good feel to this beer. A roasty and dry finish. High carbonation.

O- I have nothing bad to say about this beer. It is better out of a glass then the can. A big, solid stout.

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Photo of MaximalC
3.57/5  rDev -9.4%

Pours opaque and nearly black, with a modest mocha head that soon recedes into a veil of patchy froth. Aroma is mild, smelling of brown sugar and Saaz-like hops. The taste is bolder than the aroma would suggest, with a roasty molasses flavor, raisins, and far more alcohol than would typically manifest on the front end, even for a beer with a rather high ABV such as this. A stickiness lingers on the lips after sipping. The hop presence, while not especially strong, doesn't seem to meld very well with the malt, lending something of a two-faced dynamic to the flavor profile. Even the finish is conflicted, with a rather enjoyable roasted coffee aftertaste being subjugated by an artificial, metallic flavor that I'm more used to encountering in Baltic porters. This could almost pass for a Baltic porter if I didn't know any better. Acetaldehyde is also noticeable. The mouthfeel has fairly nice body and texture and is on par for the style, making it one of this beer's stronger suits.

While this stout affords bold flavor and nice body, there is little in the way of synergy holding it together, and the alcohol becomes overbearing as the beer warms, making sipping a near necessity. Not a bad stout, but a bit too all-over-the-place for my tastes.

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Photo of flyingpig
4.23/5  rDev +7.4%

330ml bottle from The Cave, Glasgow:

Deep, mahogany brown on closer inspection. It is topped with a foamy, light brown coloured head about half a centimetre tall which manages to hold very well indeed, particularly for the strength of the beer; it barely budges other than a very slight initial reduction of no more than a millimetre.

Rich malts to begin along with a strong, dark chocolate aroma that is also quite rich and hints at some sweetness along with some sugar and a bit of cocoa. There is some darker fruits present, notably cherries and there is also some roasted malts and a faint amount of alcohol towards the end.

A nice mix of cherries and various other darker fruits. There is also a good blend of rich malts, chocolate and sweet, roasted malts that are pretty well balanced and seem to work well together. I also seemed to taste a slightly milky flavour somewhere near the middle and some slight bitterness right at the end.

Medium in body, slightly tangy and with a nice fruity character. There is medium to high carbonation and a nice amount of alcohol lingering in the background too.

Quite an unusually fruity stout but a very nice one nonetheless with a lot going on, especially with the depth of character in the smell. This one is certainly up there with the best stouts I have tried to date.

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Photo of ThisWangsChung
3.15/5  rDev -20.1%

11.2 oz bottle into a pint glass.

A: Pours a very dark red color with nice opacity. The head is a huge, foaming three finger khaki color that descends to one finger after a while. Plenty of lacing is left behind, as well.

S: Big, massive, hugely sweet chocolate. Some dark fruits, as well. Actually, come to think about it, there's a minor whiff of sour cherries - infection, perhaps? We shall see. I still enjoy the aroma greatly, but that foamy head should have been a giveaway.

T: The flavor takes on more of a roasted barley and coffee bean tone, especially at first, while waves of chocolaty sweet and - unfortunately - tart cherries seemingly via an onsetting infection. After a while, the tartness takes center stage. Some herbal hop flavors also try to pop up in the finish, as well. So what we have here is a lightly soured stout, and it kind of works. Not perfectly by any means, but there's enough sweetness here to keep it in check.

M: Quite light in its loafers with wimpy carbonation. There's actually an esophageal burn and a bit of stomach turning which completely tanks the mouthfeel score for me. On the palate proper, it's not particularly dry, but nicely bittersweet'n'sour; whatever the blue hell that's supposed to mean.

O: Infected - it just has to be. But thank Odin it's a minor infection that actually gives it a pleasant twist, instead of twisting my mouth sideways and dissolving my tongue. This clearly isn't the final product as it's intended to be - thankfully I have a penchant for a good Flemish-style ale along side my stout tooth, so I still think it's quite okay.

If you're bottle has "123881841" on it, just be wary.

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Photo of KajII
3.56/5  rDev -9.6%

[Suggested Glassware: Snifter]

The pour was a murky pitch black with an average (1-2 finger) chocolate shake brown creamy head that was mostly diminishing, down to a thin film and medium collar that pretty much lasted throughout and had good sticky lacing.

The aroma was of a roasted dark malt, mild resin hops and a leathery yeast with notes of chocolate, dried dark fruit (prunes) and a nice mild alcohol tinge.

The taste was very malty and just a tad sweet with a hint of chocolate early on, then progressed with a mild bitterness, a touch of dark fruit and a bold coffee note towards the finish. The flavor hung on for a decent duration after the swallow with a smooth choco-coffee taste and a mild alcohol warming sensation at the end.

Mouthfeel was medium in body with a thin oily texture and a medium carbonation.

Overall this was a nice a roasty brew, although I did find it to be just a little thin for a stout it did possess very nice taste and a great drinkability...


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Photo of peensteen
3.85/5  rDev -2.3%

Basically pitch black in colour, finger of tan head, good retention, solid lace as well. Smell is of dark chocolate, coffee and a huge roasted malt bill, bits of dark fruit come and go, milk chocolate as it warmed up. Taste is fairly roasted up front with milk chocolate, moderate sweetness, mild bitterness as well as some coffee and dark fruit in the finish. Medium carbonation, medium full body, nice full creamy feel here. Nice stuff and quite drinkable overall, certainly got my $2.05 worth on this one.

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Photo of pjohnston007
2.31/5  rDev -41.4%

Poured it and then sat down to drink it while reading the reviews on here. Noticed the first swig full of flavor and inviting. It was all downhill from there. It started getting sickly sweet or something offensive. I'm not sure if it was the mouthfeel or the flavors. Before a gag reflex set in, I rushed to the sink and poured the glass and what remained in the bottle down the sink. I switched to a Sam Adams Winter Lager but that would not enough to cleanse my palate. There's a reason a large bottle of this is only $3.50. Stay away.

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Photo of superspak
3.68/5  rDev -6.6%

330 ml bottle into tulip glass, bottled on 6/9/2011. Pours pitch black color with a nice 2 finger dense mocha head with fantastic retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Some nice soapy lacing clings to the glass. Aromas of raisin, apple, dark chocolate, roasted malt, caramel, molasses, herbal, light char, coffee, and earthiness. Nice aromas with good strength and balance; quite a bit on the fruity side. Taste of big dark chocolate, roasted malt, char, caramel, raisin, molasses, apple, light coffee, herbal, and earthiness. Fair amount of herbal bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of dark chocolate, roasted malt, caramel, molasses, light fruit, and herbal on the finish for a good bit. Good balance of roasted flavors with light herbal hoppiness; slight amount of cloying flavors on the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; with a creamy, chalky, and slick mouthfeel that is good. Alcohol is very well hidden with only a small warming present on the finish. Overall this is a good foreign stout. Some nice robust roasted flavors with good complexity; quite smooth to sip on. A bit cloying at times, but is a nice sipper.

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Photo of BossHogg
4.45/5  rDev +12.9%

A: Dark brown, with brown foam. Looks like dark chocolate, or coffee.
S: Smells of roasted cocoa, nuts, and perhaps a little malty.
T: I taste the cocoa and caramel, but my taste buts keep getting some roasted nuts in there as well. An odd, but delicious combination of bitter and sweet. That 8.8% ABV isn't even noticable.
M: Not very heavily carbonated. Silky
O: This isn't a beer you drink 4-5 of. This beer is heavy and mind blowingly delicious. Once I stop trying beers, I imagine I'll come back to this one a few times.

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Photo of CMUbrew
2.32/5  rDev -41.1%

11.2 oz bottle into a snifter

A: Pours very black, and looks fairly viscous. About a finger an a half of brown head which dissipates somewhat quickly. Looks like a nice stout.

S: Here's where the trouble starts. Smell is quite strange. Somewhere between skunky and slightly sour. Highly grainy. Not good.

T: Grainy, with a bad lactic sourness in there. Pretty weak roasted flavor. Some dark fruit, dates. Crappy, highly tannic coffee on the finish.

M: Might not have been bad here if it wasn't for the high astringency.

O: Not pleasant. Drainpour. Big disappointment. Pricepoint is the only reason behind the 2.5 here. Really sad I bought two bottles.

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Photo of thierrynantes
3.95/5  rDev +0.3%

Beer bottle (33 cl.) purchased from La Cave de l'inattendu, and tasted in 2012.

Appearance : black color, with tan foamy head.
Smell : sweet malty with roasted aromas.
Taste & mouthfeel : roasted flavors with intense dark chocolate finish.
Drinkability : a good beer in the style Foreign Stout.

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Lion Stout from Ceylon / Lion Brewery Limited
88 out of 100 based on 878 ratings.