'Highland' connections to North Carolina

Another reminder of the Scottish and Ulster-Scots ancestry of large numbers of Southerners can be found in a small brewing company in Asheville, North Carolina. The Appalachians are historically the area of the South which has the highest concentration of Celtic Southerners and where the influence of the Ulster-Scots has been the greatest. It's appropriate then that a local brewing company would pay homage to this legacy. The Highland brand is sold in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. It features a Scotsman in traditional dress on the front of its beers and uses the trademark 'Just a wee bit different' on its products. Being a big fan of tasty, dark beers, I decided to pick up a few of their Black Mocha Stouts. Here is the description of this beverage from their website:

Highland’s most robust beer, having a very malty body with a large, roasted chocolate flavor, all achieved solely through the use of special roasted barley grains. It is black in color with a very clean finish and moderate hop flavor.

While the porter style was developing, some brewers produced a stout porter and over time generated a new style known simply as stout. These beers traditionally contain a distinct roasted malt flavor and can run the gamut from a dry stout, such as Guinness to a sweet stout such as Watney’s Cream Stout. Our Black Mocha falls in the sweet stout range and derives its chocolate and coffee tones from the use of appropriate roasted malt grains and is very often used as an after dinner libation or an accompaniment to dessert.