One of the greatest things about brewing is how simple it really can be. One way you know that is that once in a while there's a lesson or rule or practice that you can draw on in your brewing that you learned way back when you were a brand-new brewer, and it applies just as neatly and well years and hundreds of batches later.
For me, it was my fourth beer, and I was brewing an extract Robust Porter. The recipe I was following recommended using blackstrap molasses in place of part of the malt extract for the recipe, and that molasses addition did some really wonderful things for that beer. The burnt-sugar and minerally flavors suggested maturation rather than oxidation, but imparted some of the same flavors we get out of well-aged beers - and without the waiting or the staling risk.
It was something I'd come back to again and again, with other sugars and syrups, but especially in beers that wanted depth of flavor but lightness of body - which brings us (finally) to Scottish Export (or 80-shilling) Ale.