22 oz bottle, $7.49 from Total Wine, Perimeter, Atlanta, GA, USA. #2 in the Midnight Project, Terrapin/Left Hand collaboration. Deliberately avoided this at Brewgrass as I wanted to try it for the first time, properly. Gold foil on the neck.
No surprise on the pour, a pure black with tan espresso like head. Some lace.
There’s actually EXTREMELY little to report here – this is in NO way a complex beer. That doesn’t make it *bad*, it just means it is what it is.
The nose and tastes are basically those chocolate covered espresso beans. A strong, slightly smoked, bitter chocolate based espresso combo and very little else. The coffee is VERY strong, but at the same time it is not oppressive. It really tastes like a very high quality, sweetened espresso. There is very little lactose or milk stout character here for me, rather this is simply liquid chocolate espresso beans.
EXTREMELY light in the mouth too, not remotely viscous and one might even say *thin* when one considers the type of beer this is. In fact it’s really only the carbonation (with a touch of warming alcohol) that distinguishes this from BEING coffee. Perhaps that is a bit harsh, after all is is NOT supposed to be an Imperial Stout, but the coffee combo can trick the mind into expecting a much larger beer overall. I think that I may have fallen victim of the American obsession with large eveything!
This is one of the few beers that one can truly consider to be a “coffee” beer and not much else. This is SUCH a good “coffee” replicator that it might even impress people that DON’T like coffee. Quite a feat to make beer actually BE coffee! Very drinkable, try it with a doughnut or a bagel!