There's going out, then there's going OUT out, then the last step in this process is staying out; a phase few people have managed to achieve without embarrassing themselves.
Tiny Rebel has brewed this limited edition monster beer to celebrate the end of the coronavirus lockdowns and the re-opening of the country. They've taken their extremely popular Stay Puft marshmallow porter and turned it from a middle-of-the-road 5.2% porter to a gargantuan 18%.
That's more than a lot of glasses of wine and makes it a truly rare beer. So rare in fact that Tiny Rebel have only brewed one batch, so if you can get a hold of one you definitely should.
As with Stay Puft, Stay Out has a very sweet smell when you pop the can. The sweetness is very sickly and artificial, chiming in with the marshmallow flavour to give it a really decadent aroma. Where Stay Out differs is the strong alcohol smell that accompanies the sweetness. It's actually very reminiscent of strong brandy, with a sweet booziness that's very tantalising.
The pour is thick and there's next to no head to speak of, with the beer sloshing into the glass and releasing more of those sweet, boozy aromas. The texture is dense, with a creamy and thick mouthfeel that has a sharpness to it from the strength.
The base beer of Stay Puft is obvious in the flavour, which is virtually identical initially until the strength cuts through. What I was worried about with a beer this strong was the booze overpowering everything else, but the strength actually compliments the sweetness of the marshmallow, helping to balance the strong alcohol flavour in a very pleasant way.
As with any strong beer, the aftertaste has a slight throat burn, although this is more obvious than most high ABV beers. There's a richness to the aftertaste along with a slight sweetness to compliment the alcohol which rounds off this super-strong beer nicely.
The marshmallow man returns for Stay Out, but this time it's just his outline in gold on a jet black can. The gold outline coupled with the gold can colour contrasts wonderfully with the black label and gives it an air of prestige that you don't normally see on beer can labels.
The neckerchief and beer name are the only solid gold elements of the label and add a nice eye-catching element to the design, even the Tiny Rebel name remains in red and is understated.
The beer information and the strength is in a red text too which makes it very subtle and doesn't detract from the can design, but does make it a little harder to read. Ditto the information on the back which while useful, is tough to read with the red on black.
This was a limited edition run from Tiny Rebel so they're hard to track down online, your best bet is to head to your local bottle shop to see if they have any in stock still. It's worth it just for the experience of such a strong beer.
