Blue Pants "Candy Bar Pinstripe" Stout

My second Blue Pants beer, and the first was very good. This was recommended by the resident experts at City Sliquors, and they pointedly described it as tasting like candy. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but some could argue that the good hard root beers taste like candy, and I seem to like them.

It's too dark to be called really, really dark brown. I am sure I will get flak for calling it black, though. The head dissipates surprisingly quickly and leaves a scant lilypad across the top. The scent is coffee, chocolate, a smoky wood, and vanilla. The whole aroma is very sweet, and it's very inviting.

First sip is possibly the strangest beer I've had yet. I mean strange in a good way, not like HiCu or anything. It's dark chocolate around a roasted coffee bean sitting in a small drizzle of spilled vanilla milkshake. It's more than that, though - it's smooth and rich. For a simple sip, it's pretty good. As a full swig of beer, I wonder if it can get better.

Tip-in is coffee, caramel, and vanilla. The carbonation picks up as we head toward the middle, and the beer gets prickly. Smoky malt and caramel sweetness dominate as the beer slides down the gullet swiftly and easily. As the finish comes on, a bitterness seems to settle a little bit as more vanilla and chocolate dance around with the carbonation swirls.

Bottom Line: Not an everyday beer, but an excellent dessert beer.

3.0/5