Salted Caramel Imperial Stout
Southern Tier Brewing Company

Salted Caramel Imperial StoutSalted Caramel Imperial Stout
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From:
Southern Tier Brewing Company
 
New York, United States
Style:
Sweet / Milk Stout
ABV:
10%
Score:
92
Avg:
4.12 | pDev: 10.44%
Reviews:
88
Ratings:
346
Status:
Active
Rated:
Jan 27, 2022
Added:
Mar 16, 2016
Wants:
  23
Gots:
  74
We brewed Salted Caramel to pay tribute to one of our favorite sweets. In the same vein as salted caramel chocolates and truffles, our Salted Caramel stout is the perfect balance of sweet decadence and savory salt. Perfect alone, or enjoyed as a float.

Southern Tier Salted Caramel takes a base imperial milk stout (brewed with lactose), Himalayan pink sea salt, and caramelized sugar, to mimic the flavor of the candy. Much like other beers in the Blackwater Series, this dessert beer finishes at 10% alcohol by volume.
Recent ratings and reviews. | Log in to view more ratings + sorting options.
Ratings by superspak:
Photo of superspak
Reviewed by superspak from North Carolina

4.1/5  rDev -0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5
22 ounce bottle into snifter, bottled on 5/20/2016. Pours opaque dark brown/black color with a 1-2 finger fairly dense and fluffy tan head with good retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings around the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Aromas of big caramel, toffee, brown sugar, milk/dark chocolate, vanilla, cream, toasted dark bread, light cocoa/coffee, herbal, and roast/toasted earthiness. Damn nice aromas with great balance and complexity of dark/roast/bready malt, caramel, and light earthy hop notes; with great strength. Taste of big caramel, toffee, brown sugar, milk/dark chocolate, vanilla, cream, toasted dark bread, light cocoa/coffee, herbal, light salt, and roast/toasted earthiness. Light-moderate herbal/spicy hop and roast/light charred bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of caramel, toffee, brown sugar, milk/dark chocolate, vanilla, cream, toasted dark bread, herbal, light salt, and roast/toasted earthiness on the finish for a while. Damn nice complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/roast/bready malt, caramel/salt, and light earthy hop flavors; with a great bitterness/sweetness balance and zero cloying flavors after the finish. Light dryness from hop/roast bitterness, lightly increasing through the glass. Light-medium carbonation and fairly full bodied; with a very smooth, creamy/silky/slick, and fairly sticky/chalky balanced mouthfeel that is nice. Alcohol is fairly well hidden with a small warmth lingering after the finish. Overall this is an excellent imperial sweet stout. All around great complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/roast/bready malt, caramel/salt, and light earthy hop flavors; very smooth and easy to sip on for the big ABV. Very similar to Creme Brulee on flavor and sweetness; needs a bit more age to smooth out the bittering hop quality, to give it the true dessert beer feel. A very enjoyable offering as it is now, though.
Jun 24, 2016
More User Ratings:
Photo of ScruffySouthpaw
Reviewed by ScruffySouthpaw from New York

4.12/5  rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
Served in a snifter glass from a vintage 22oz bomber.

Appearance: Semi thick but still a little thin black coffee body with medium bubbles to the body. Tan head rose initially half a fingers length off the body.

Smell: Light melted brown sugar.

Taste: Complex chocolate feels like milk and dark chocolate meshed with sea salt coffee and vanilla bean. Toffee sweetness is a touch overpowering, no complaints here.

Mouth: Super sticky with a medium carbonation. Candy syrup finish which lingers to your palates.

Overall: Good brew, a pastry stout before the term existed. Think of a brownie reinvented as a beer.
Jan 27, 2022
 
Rated: 4 by TMoney2591 from Illinois

Jan 22, 2022
Photo of JohnniEMc
Reviewed by JohnniEMc from Pennsylvania

4.3/5  rDev +4.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
When it's time for desert, Southern Tier is a go to. A clear Imperial pint glass has been filled by one and a half brown 12 oz. bottles of this. It pours with a color like a cola, a deep dark caramel. Not particularly generous with head nor lacing, it really won't matter to the overall. A sweet caramel candy aroma is intensely filling the area. The taste can't be far from that. It's not, although it's not as sweet as the nose predicted. Salt is there and it helps tone down some of the sweetness. There's a pronounced vanilla characteristic to the caramel flavor. The malt base is ample enough to carry the flavors and a hop finish at the end. That hop inclusion at the finish defines that an ale is being consumed, not a soda pop with alcohol in it. Once again, Southern Tier has nailed a desert stout.
P.S. The ABV of this offering was 8.6%, so we're not all reviewing the same beverage, although the label is the same. Recipes change and it would be a positive for Beer Advocate to take notice of that.
Mar 06, 2021
Photo of skisonic
Reviewed by skisonic from Maryland

3.68/5  rDev -10.7%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
Looks a light brown, like a soda from the fountain. Light head. Smells of vanilla! Heavy. With a sweet, almost nutty undertone. Bitter as hell, quite a strong vanilla flavor with carried on a robust juicy body. Light, easy to sip for such heavy flavors.
Jan 30, 2021
 
Rated: 4.6 by cubsfanpam from Illinois

Jan 10, 2021
 
Rated: 4.75 by MonkeyPilates from Minnesota

Jan 02, 2021
 
Rated: 4.33 by GracelandII from Virginia

Dec 21, 2020
Photo of Nuttin_but_the_best_Clark
Reviewed by Nuttin_but_the_best_Clark from Massachusetts

1.69/5  rDev -59%
look: 3 | smell: 1.5 | taste: 1.5 | feel: 2 | overall: 1.75
This beer is absolutely terrible!!! First off, this is a new release of this and is a Porter, not a Stout. The positive reviews are likely from folks who had the stout ... which is no longer available. So how is the Porter? Awful!

It tastes similar to a more medicinal version of that drink which was popular for a minute around 2017 called Not Your Father's Rootbeer which was an alcoholic root beer which tasted more like cream soda mixed with shampoo and suntan lotion. This beer is vile and just about every aspect of it is unpleasant.

I get barely any salt or carmel. There is an astringent note of Bactine and the faint note of cream soda which is almost immediately covered up by overwhelming soap flavors. It's cringeworthy and would make a better steak sauce than a beer, tasting like carbonated H&P British Steak Sauce.

The mouthfeel is weak and soda-like and there is carbonation like soda but with zero foam. I really don't know what brewmaster signed off on this gross concoction. I literally threw 3 bottles away after drinking the first one. At near $20 for a 4 pack of bottles, it's almost criminal to sell this. It's worse than most Red's Apple Ale wine coolers.

Do yourself a favor and, as good as Salted Carmel Porter sounds, do NOT touch this beer with a 10 foot pole.
Nov 21, 2020
 
Rated: 4.08 by liquorpig from Massachusetts

Nov 13, 2020
 
Rated: 4.49 by Maillard from Ohio

Nov 08, 2020
Photo of Shelbs90
Reviewed by Shelbs90 from Montana

1/5  rDev -75.7%
look: 1 | smell: 1 | taste: 1 | feel: 1 | overall: 1
worst beer i’ve had lately. it was atrocious. smelled disgusting. tastes like 100 year old carnival candies dropped in the dirt. would not recommend to anyone.
Oct 29, 2020
 
Rated: 4.54 by Danzifer from Ohio

Oct 24, 2020
 
Rated: 4 by BEER88 from North Carolina

Jan 19, 2020
 
Rated: 5 by Jdells09 from New Jersey

Dec 12, 2019
 
Rated: 4.19 by lccrunchy from Pennsylvania

Jun 02, 2019
 
Rated: 4.06 by dafla67 from Pennsylvania

May 01, 2019
 
Rated: 4.09 by glass_house from Ohio

Jan 30, 2019
Photo of The_Coach
Reviewed by The_Coach from Ohio

4.54/5  rDev +10.2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
Well done. Like this one a lot better than the Creme Brûlée version from Southern Tier. There’s no mistaking the salted caramel flavor, but it doesn’t go so far overboard you can’t tell it’s a stout beer.

My biggest problem with it is that it’s so hard to find. Every other beer in this series is much easier to source.
Dec 27, 2018
 
Rated: 4.17 by Reggie_Dunlop from Pennsylvania

Dec 15, 2018
Salted Caramel Imperial Stout from Southern Tier Brewing Company
Beer rating: 92 out of 100 with 346 ratings