I'm not going to lie, there's a reason I'm on beer #236 and the Black Heart is only the fourth beer I've had from Southern Oregon Brewing... it's the labels. They're, well... ugly. Generic-looking. They don't pull me in and make me think "that beer looks good"; I instead glance over them in the beer aisle thinking "that beer looks boring". Black Heart is no exception. Like all of Southern Oregon's labels, the giant "SOB" logo takes up half of the label's real estate. It's not a very good logo. The rest of it looks like a design you might find on... I don't know, the back of a black silk jacket worn by a strip club bouncer. Finally, all of the visual elements are too big, competing for space, and unpleasant to look at. "Well," you might be saying to yourself, "I don't have a stick up my ass about the damn label, it's the beer inside that's important!". You're probably right. Black Heart pours a rich, deep black with a bit of fluffy tan head. The smell is malty with hints of chocolate and mocha. Taste is pretty straight-forward: cocoa, roasty malts, a little bit of sweetness, and a little bit of booziness from the 8.5% ABV. The medium-heavy body hides most of that alcohol, though, and it ends up tasting quite smooth and creamy, which makes it incredibly drinkable! Good, solid. Not especially complex, but sometimes that's okay. My girlfriend and I had no trouble finishing off the bottle, and at $4 for a 22oz bomber, I'd recommend it to anyone looking to get buzzed off of a simple, tasty stout.