Coffee and Chocolate Tasting Notes

March 1, 2010 By Rick Lyke

Bison Organic Chocolate Stout: Deep brown color with a thin tan head opens this 5 percent ABV brew. This stout has a drier, baker’s chocolate flavor profile, with a slight cigar finish.

Deschutes Black Butte XXI: This 11 percent ABV porter is brewed with coffee beans and cocoa nibs, and 20 percent of the beer is aged is ex-Bourbon barrels. Big coffee aroma upfront, with a slight sweetness around the finish. Nice hit of vanilla from the barrel aging. Rich and big, this beer will evolve. The label says “Best After 10/17/10.”

Foothills Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout: Big, thick and opaque. This hard-to-find dark 9.75 ABV brew has an almost purple hue around the edges. An immediate baker’s chocolate nose is present, with a big beer delivery of cocoa, coffee, toffee and roasted grain flavors.

Founders Breakfast Stout: Brewed with imported chocolate and Sumatra and Kona coffees, this 8.3 percent ABV stout is a dark black color with a tan head. Roasted aromas and flavors surrounded by espresso and cocoa.

Kona Pipeline Porter: The beer opens with a nice mocha nose. The roasted coffee flavor is firm, but not overpowering in this beer. The end result is a lighter bodied brew than most tasted for this column. Think iced coffee.

Meantime Coffee Porter: Infused at the fermentation stage, this English beer opens with a sweet malty note that is balanced nicely by a dark coffee bitterness. A very slight head on this brew and a whiff of cocoa in the nose.

Oakshire Overcast Espresso Stout: This Oregon beer has plenty of coffee aroma from cold-pressed organic coffee, which also comes through in abundance in the flavor profile. It delivers an overall extremely rich coffee flavor.

Rogue Chocolate Stout: This brew combines four malts, rolled oats, roasted barley and Dutch bittersweet chocolate in an attractive dark package with a creamy tan head. It leans more toward the sweet side than some other chocolate beers, making it fairly balanced.

Surly Coffee Bender: Based off of an oatmeal brown ale, this Minnesota brew comes at you with a full-bodied coffee experience, packing all of the java you really need. Coarse ground coffee is steeped for 24 hours, giving the beer an espresso-like roasted and slightly smoky flavor.

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout: Pouring this brew on nitrogen from a can you expect a creamy texture and it does not disappoint. The flavor is more of a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar with a sweet edge. A great dessert beer.