Some beers from the United States of Scotland

Blackwoods Bastard.

Scottish people in America are bigger than Scottish people in Scotland. The only short Scottish people in America are the scrawny wiry ones who pull buses with their testicles if they lose at arm wrestling, usually to tall Scottish people who get buses to move just by staring at them menacingly. It's the water.

So it's unsurprising that Heavy and Scotch Ale in the US look that wee bit bigger Stateside. Just look at this list of Scotch Ales from Paste magazine.

These are session ales for monsters, with the weakest at a pathetic 6.6%. A breakfast beer then. Nice to see Orkney, Innis & Gunn and Traquair featuring ... Also imported from this side of the ocean was a Scottish Belgium McChouffe.

And if you were in any doubt about the dark, heavy character and marketing of these beers, just look at the names: the words bastard, claymore, Pipers, Commando, splitter, skull are all there. Bastard twice. And there's no shortage of weapons, either. Bloke on the winning bottle looks a pleasant sort of bloke, though you widnae slag off his homebrew, would you?