As with most stouts that I've encountered, this particular stout is black to the naked eye, but it does have hints of ruby red around the edges. The head is a particularly dark shade of khaki brown, and it took a little coaxing to get out. Once it settles, there is a very thin lily pad of bubbles right in the middle of the glass (and these bubbles are really tiny). The aroma is sweet molasses, toffee, licorice, chocolate, and confectionery sugar.First sip made me check to make sure this was not aged in a bourbon barrel. A bourbon barrel would've explained the difficulty I had in having this beer produced a head, and it would also explain the very boozy effect of the alcohol content. This is a fairly high ABV, so I would not have been surprised to find that this is been aged in a cask or barrel or something, but it's not mentioned on the label. So, the sweet and boozy mix of wood, caramel, maple, sugar, and smoke are just coming from it being a pretty good impression of an Imperial Stout. And that's just fine by me.
Tip-in is sweet chocolate, light espresso, licorice, and molasses. The middle gets syrupy sweet and the whole drink starts to feel thick with toffee and more molasses heaped on top of what I can only describe as booze. The finish is a little bitter with the coffee and chocolate presenting themselves with the smoky wood and the booze kind of lingering in the background.
Bottom Line: More of a meal than a beer. And I was looking forward to a beer.
2.0/5
