Oaked Vanilla Bean Inebriator Stout
Sonoran Brewing Company

Enjoyed at the Watering Hole during Stout Day 2011, this is Sonoran's Inebriator Stout aged on oak with whole vanilla beans added. Enjoyed in a goblet.

Above: one finger of dense, sticky foam the color of truffle powder that eventually gets down to a thin, creamy top layer. Below: a liquid black and shiny as obsidian, and about as thick-looking.

The aroma’s awash in fresh and wet vanilla beans. Sweet cocoa powder and hints of tangy dark chocolate and acrid toast also emerge, but for the most part the roasty notes are subdued — this brew’s sweet.

I find more balance in the flavor. Vanilla is the obvious front-runner, leading with its sugars. The unadultered Inebriator is very tangy and molasses/licorice heavy, but in this version the vanilla does a great job of rounding out the spicy edges. After the swallow, burnt roast slowly rolls in — charred bread, hints of licorice, mild bitterness. Sweet and very smooth.

Creamy medium-full body with very light, tiny-bubbled carbonation. The lingering sugars make the beer a bit syrupy and tongue-coating, but there's hardly any booze heat, which is standard for Inebriator. Given its high ABV, this is a dangerous beer.

Quality stuff, this vanilla-age Inebriator. Sweet, smooth and far too easy to drink. It seemed a hit on Stout Day; I hope the brewers decided to make it again.