“We believe that Dark Ale is another unrated beer type in Oz. We tend to be a little wary of dark beer, but dark beers can be just as drinkable and thirst quenching as the amber ales you are used to. So why the Black Horn? Dubbo is home to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo and a world renowned black rhino breeding program, and one that we support.”

Glassware: English Pint.

Appearance: Light mahogany with two fingers of creamy tan foam that settles to a collar. Good retention and healthy lace sticks to the glass as it ebbs.

Aroma: Not getting a whole lot off it initially. All the classic roasty and rich sweet malts are replaced by a skunky and sulfuric scent which is quite off-putting. We can’t quite out our finger on it but it lands somewhere between boiled egg and sulphites. This is usually a by-product of Lager yeast so we’re totally baffled at this stage. There are slight wafts of roasted malt down deep but unfortunately it’s drowned out by the sulfur.

Flavour: Thankfully the sulphur qualities have disappeared but it’s replaced by…. absolutely nothing. We thought at this stage it was time to check the best before date and voila, we have the answer. The beer literally has 2 weeks until it’s out of date so we’ve been sold a beer that is almost a year old.

Overall: We thought we’d end the review here as it would be unfair to the brewery to keep going. We’re pretty pissed off with the bottle shop actually and they’ll certainly be copping an email from us. We’ll leave this unrated for now and edit when we can get one fresh.