(Ed Note: Would it shock you greatly to know that it has been over 14 months since I actually reviewed a beer on St. John’s Wort? It’s a beer blog, for God’s sake. I know actually reviewing things is out of fashion and simply posting stuff on pinstagrest is de rigeur, but let’s give it a shot.)

The Background

The Beer

Spearhead’s third and fourth offerings came to the LCBO at approximately the same time and they are a Belgian Style Stout and the Sam Roberts Band Session Ale. I cannot objectively review the Sam Roberts Band ale because it beat my beer at the Session festival this year and I am a big sulky baby.

Let’s look at what’s happening here conceptually.

Spearhead seems to have borrowed from Trappist beers the use of Trappist yeast and added sugar as a boost in both flavour and in fermentables. They seem to have borrowed Curacao Orange Peel and Coriander from Belgian Witbier. All of these things are as Belgian as Toots Thielemans playing a Waffle Harmonica and make about as much sense.

The Arbitrarily Chosen Score Based on Various Criteria

Today we’ll be using the International Suchet-Golightly beer evaluation scale, which naturally rates famous Belgians on a spectrum from Hercule Poirot to Audrey Hepburn.

At one end, we have Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. He is, rather than a Belgian-Style Stout, a Stout-Style Belgian. At the other end we have Belgian born Audrey Hepburn; the only lady in the world who can make Linus Larrabee give up plastics.

Coco Chanel said something Audrey Hepburn relevant: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” This is very good advice. Spearhead Belgian Style Stout is too busy. The earrings distract from the pendant and the feather boa is absolutely outré, to say nothing of the spats.

I rate Spearhead Belgian Style Stout a Peter Ustinov as Poirot. It’s a good performance if a little filigreed and would be helped somewhat by the restraint of David Niven.