Vanilla Oak Aged Yeti
Great Divide Brewing Co.

 

 

6/30/19...pitch black and heavy tan foam. Layers and laces and latches everywhere. Coffee nose. Dark chocolate. Hearty burnt coffee flavor. Ro-bust! Heavy bitter. Astringency kicks in. A wallop. The vanilla gets second billing.

 

Poured from the can into a teku style glass.

Super rich filling head. Creamy and billowing large at three plus fingers height, it has a mocha light brown color and even dare I say looks slightly orange as well. Real neato! Body is super dark walnut brown and nearly black, not a hint of light getting through this at all.

Nice aroma. Rich roast malt notes, hints faint coffee, but an excellent round oak flavor and soft sweetness. Does have that milky vanilla sweetness, but has much more coffee tones and machiato like milk than vanilla. Hints a little spicy also, and a real nice experience.

Palate just gets the job done, but stays away from exotics. Real nice bright hop and char bitterness on first sip. The mouthfeel for oak comes a little weak and doesn't give the impression of long aged or a great depth, but just a solid basic one. Still the mid palate provides lots of classic and great stout flavors. Rich roasted char particularly, almost flirts with charcoal mixing with a light hop bitterness and dark chocolate finish. Aftertaste gets into more roast but also bitterness that gets hints of clove, and particularly some black pepper quality too.

Very nice stout, but seems to have lost it's vanilla edge. However, the Yeti rarely disappoints if ever.

 

 

 

 

look: Very dark brown with ruby highlights. Thick mocha head, messy clingy lacing.
smell: Hint of vanilla, some roasty stout. Not getting any oak.
taste: Much like the nose. a little spice in the finish.

22oz can poured into a snifter.

A: Pitch black pour. Frothy brown head retains beautifully at an inch in height. Lacing stubbornly clings to any part of the glass it touches. Looks awesome.

S: Heavy blanket of roast. Bitter espresso and bitter dark chocolate. Bitter and earthy hops. Pine and resin. Big pull of oak and vanillins.

T: Follows the nose. Huge blanket of roast and bitterness. Deep, unsweetened espresso flavor. Bitter dark chocolate. Earthy hops are not shy. Vanilla and oak soften things just a bit and lay in more dryness, especially on the finish. Finishes with a kiss of smoke and a long roasty and earthy bitterness.

M: Huge, full body. Creamy and mouth-filling. Soft, velvety, and decadent. Brush of oak tannin. Soft carbonation.

O: A nice variant. Stays true to itself, as it is most certainly Yeti at its core, in all its earthy, bitter, and roasty glory. The oak and vanilla play nicely and add good dimension. Really great, and it feels like a classic.

Great Divide Vanilla Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, 9.5% ABV. Pours black and thick with a four-finger head that left lots of foamy lacing. Nose is vanilla and chocolate. Taste is roast malt, vanilla, and oak with moderate bitter close. Dry oak mouthfeel, overall excellent, but I prefer my oak filled with bourbon.

Looks nearly perfect....dark dark beer that's black...low on carbonation though but most barrel aged beers are. Low head but lacing goes on.

Smells of sweet chocolate syrup and vanilla...some carried wood and caramel

Tastes of strong hops and bitterness from a tons of charred grains...sweet chocolate, caramel, and vanilla fade in and overpower the bitterness for a bit. Dries out and I get a strong campfire aftertaste. Some spiciness lingers.

Feel is pretty light for an imperial stout. More carbonation would be helpful but not mandatory.

Overall this is a great beer. I agree that it seems too hoppy and bitter for an imperial stout but there a lot of rich and complex flavors here. Very enjoyable. Not my favorite YETI version but still a great tasting brew.

Happy International Stout Day (2019) to everyone from The CANQuest (tm)!

From the CAN: "Vanilla Oak Aged Yeti needs no frillsor exotic ingredients, but instead applies a more sophisticated approach to differentiation. Sweet vanilla melds perfectly with the influence of French and American oak, enhancing the signature bold, roasty character of our classic imperial stout. This beast may be refined, nut it's anything but tame."

After Crack!ing open the vent on this massive 568-ml CAN, I beCAN a slow, gentle C-Line Glug into the awaiting glass. I was really heartened when it performed a pseudo-cascade that ended up forming two-plus fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, deep-tan/light-brown head with great retention. Once it finally settled, color was Black/Opaque (SRM = 44), allowing ZERO light penetration. Nose smelled really good with the oak aging playing a real part in it, along with the standard chocolaty-smoky quality of Yeti. I remember my maternal uncle & his fellow home vintner, Jack Fleiner, playing around with oak chips back in the late-1980s & thinking what an impact it had on their "fine wines". Mouthfeel was big, thick & full, like a liquefied brownie in my mouth. The taste had a beautiful coffee-like roastiness along with a slight sweet vanilla flavor to round the edges, but it was the oak that really stole the show. They did not need to put anything in that regard on the label for me. I tasted it almost immediately! It not only lent the beer a woody/wooden quality, but it also added a marshmallow taste along with or in CANjunction with the vanilla. Phew! It seems as though I picked a winner for Stout Day. Finish was dry, perhaps a bit drier than the style might call for, but no problem on my end. YMMV.

 

 

Pours a very effervescent mahogany with 3 fingers of mocha colored head. Great head retention & very good lacing

S: Vanilla, coffee, roastyness

T: Roasted grain, woody hops, dryness & caramel up front, a touch of booze up front. Roastyness as this warms, plenty of tannins, sweetness takes a backseat, just a whisper of vanilla & cocoa. plus oakyness. Finishes with a little creamy vanilla coffee, a little woody hop& dryness

MF: Medium body, creamy carbonation

Nice iteration, not as good as the real deal or some of the off-shots, but worth a try

 

Aroma is dark malts, earthy and slight sweetness. The flavor is dark/roasted malts, fruit/dark fruit, chocolate and a slightly sweet vanilla/acidic/warming alcoholic finish.