The nose is oatmeal shortbread with a little bit of cream and honey. Oak and caramel apple (like at Halloween) is fairly strong at the end of the nosing. This is really sweet on the taste, too sweet for me in a way that reminded me of simple syrup and only gives a little ground to the apple and honey. The interesting oatmeal on the nose is missing and this just tastes like a fairly generic Irish. The finish gets a little bit darker and I think I can begin to see the stout-influence but then it's over. I had this with a bit of a spicy meal, so that may have obscured some virtues of it, but I was really disappointed with this.