Guinness: Red Harvest

Guinness has been coasting for some 400 years or so on it's original Guinness Draught Beer. Recently they've been trying to mix it up a little bit. In 2005 they announced they'd be releasing four brewmaster series beers. They gave up after three. They introduced Guinness Black Lager and flooded the market with ads to try and jump start it, but so far it makes up less than 1% of its sales. Now they're jumping into the most lucrative craft seasonal market, fall beers, with Guinness Red Harvest Ale.
As you can see, Red Harvest pours much like its older brother, dark with a nice fluffy head that quickly gets pulled down by the nitrogen. The immediate smell is strong roasted malts with some chocolate and faint coffee notes. The taste is at first very rich with up front sweetness with the same toasty malt flavor and a touch of toffee and caramel. The lingering taste is very thin though, almost a bit watered down. The finish is very dry with no bitterness what-so-ever and as quickly as it was here, it's gone. Unfortunately, this beer just don't hit the spot for me, coming off as a watered down Guinness with some caramel tossed in to "redden" it up. I guess there's a reason they've been making the same beer for so long.