MacTarnahan’s Brewing Co.
Portland, OR
Available: ID, OR, WA
Brewed with roasted and chocolate malts and real coffee beans, Goose Bump™ is the fourth offering in MacTarnahan’s line-up of specialty big bottle beers. All offerings in this series are available in 22-ounce bottles and limited draft only: each production yields less than 1, 000 cases.
ABV: 9.0
ABW: 7.16
Color: black
Bitterness: 56
Original gravity: 1084
Black, with just a hint of deep winey red. A nose of dark chocolate, ripe plum, and brown sugar, but none of the coffee I’m told is in here. Just a hint of coffee near the finish, only after the dark malts and bitterness. Still…exceptionally smooth, silky even, with a good fruitiness evident throughout, reminding me of a colleague who used to say “I do like to know an ale is an ale.” If you want an imperial stout to hurt you, look elsewhere. This one’s almost too refined.
There seem to be a lot of coffee beers around of late, many of them based on an imperial stout base, as is this. Pitch black in color, it has a sweetish, well-roasted coffee aroma holding notes of licorice candy and a hint of campfire. The body is suitably big, with some molasses-ish sweetness up front and coffee, burnt nut and soft citrus notes in the middle. The finish is a bit sharp, but gives way quickly to a lingering and warming coffee bean finish. For those cold and rainy Portland nights.
Lew Bryson writes about beer and whiskey from his home in southeast Pennsylvania. He has a family and two dogs. That's all you need to know.
Once described as “beerdom's Brillat-Savarin,” Stephen Beaumont is the author of five books and countless articles on beer, spirits, food, travel, and how it all goes together.
