Creamy how?

When I saw that Galway Bay had named a beer Irish Cream Stout, I assumed that "cream" here was one of those redundant marketing words, like I'd be more likely to buy a "cream stout" than simply a "stout". But no, it's "Irish cream" as in Baileys. This beer is meant to taste like both cream liqueur and stout. I was apprehensive... but intrigued.

The head is Baileys-coloured, so that's a good start. Its dark brown body looks a bit muddy, though. The aroma suggests a fairly ordinary sweet stout, showing more toffee than one might expect from the unlikely-sounding added ingredient of "Irish cream natural extract". I'm guessing that's lactose, chocolate, vanilla and hen parties. There's oatmeal too, and that really pays its way in the texture. Though only 5% ABV, it feels like a big and luxurious imperial stout: silk, velvet, and similar cliché textile descriptors.

It doesn't taste at all like Baileys. As with the aroma, there's a slightly sticky sweet quality -- caramel and milk chocolate bars -- but that's well balanced by a solid dose of serious roast, drying it out in the finish and improving the drinkability. Which is just as well.

I'm not sure this experiment worked. The beer wasn't ruined by dumping a tub of powdered Baileys into it, but there's a very decent classic oatmeal stout underneath, which I would have preferred to drink instead. One could consider this a minor variant on standard milk stout but it doesn't have the complexity to be anything more involved. You may need a bottle of cream liqueur on hand, to top up its "character".