I’ve spent most of today trying to troubleshoot our hot tub. So, while it’s filling up with water, I thought I would grab a beer to take the edge off of my frustration… and to sit down and watch basketball. My sister gave me this beer a couple of months ago. Although I’ve been to Deschutes brewery in Portland and had it there, I noticed I hadn’t reviewed it yet. It says it’s bottle conditioned on the label.
Location: Poured into a snifter pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 6.4% ABV, 55 IBUs, ~220 Calories
Ingredients: Malt: 2 Row, Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, Carapils, Munich, Crystal; Hops: Delta and Northern Brewer
Appearance & Aroma: It’s deep black in color without any highlights coming through when I held it up to the light. It has a thin, tan, creamy head on it that faded to a thin layer of bubbles across the top after a few minutes but left nice lacing on the glass. There’s a roasty-malty aroma with hints of coffee and dark chocolate.
Taste & Feel: The body is light medium and the mouthfeel is smooth and lightly creamy. The flavor up front is a lightly sweet roasty maltiness with some hints of dark chocolate. In the middle, the sweetness grows a bit and is also joined by some roasty-coffee like flavors that are smooth and not overly bitter or astringent. The coffee-like flavors and light bitterness grow a little in the finish to outpace the roasty-malty cocoa-like sweetness. The coffee-cocoa like flavors are what last for a couple minutes in the aftertaste.
Food Pairing: This beer has a good amount of roasty flavors, such as coffee and cocoa, and I think it would make a great pairing with a steak, as the sweet and bitter roastiness would contrast the savory char of the steak.
Overall Impression: This is what a stout is meant to be. It’s extremely well-balanced between sweetness and bitterness. Sometimes I think the bitterness of a stout can come off as astringent, or almost like a burnt coffee bitterness, but this was more of a bittersweet chocolate-like bitterness, that I really enjoyed. It was smooth and easy to drink, and was extremely drinkable. If I’m looking for a stout, this is the one I’m going to grab.
My Rating: 
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