Day 18, 1.18.11, Skull Splitter

So, If you ever check how things are going on facebook, you may remember me being pretty, pretty  excited about finding Skull Splitter at Whole Foods. 

It's a Scotch Ale brewed in Scotland's Orkney Islands.  Apparently, (according to the bottle) the name 'Skull Splitter' refers to the 7th Viking Earl of Orkney, Thorfinn Hausakluif.  For what it's worth.
The beer, I would say, is pretty good.  It's a dark brown ale with not much head to speak of.  It's 8.5% ABV.  On the nose, there are coffee beans and maple.  It's medium bodied and pretty smooth drinking.  There's a well integrated bit of malt bitterness, offset by a good amount of residual sugar.  It's got plenty of brown sugar and maple in the same vein as Primátor, but sooooo much better in the balance department.
So it's a little too sweet and malt driven for my taste, but since it's so much better than Primátor, and because of the fact that it's called Skull Splitter and has a label that looks like this,
I'm calling it a 7 out of 10.