Wintervention
Garrison Brewing Company

 

Poured from fridge temp. Pours a nice motor oil black with a considerable amount of head. Nose is full of chocolate, lactose, dark fruit, and a hint of licorice. Taste is really interesting. A considerable amount of bitterness hits the palate immediately, but in an inviting way. I get some hops in there, and some coffee grounds. Definitely some charred wood, licorice, and bitter cooking chocolate. Not the best flavors in the world, but definitely an interesting stout. Mouthfeel is nice and viscous and robust. Overall, worth trying if you have the chance.

 

650ml bottle - some nice sturdy snowblower imagery on the label. A chocolate Imperial Stout, with a somewhat strange portmanteau moniker.

This beer pours a fairly solid black, yet with loose red-cola basal edges, and three chubby fingers of puffy, rocky, and bubbly brown head, which leaves some nicely layered tabletop cloud pattern lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of bittersweet cocoa powder, lightly roasted caramel malt, Mars Bar-style nougat, subtle cafe-au-lait, a hint of musty yeastiness, testy dark orchard fruit (underripe plum and cherry, mostly), and some plain leafy, weedy, and gently perfumed floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, medium chocolate, day-old coffee, fresh cream, those toffee candies that Grandpa always has in his pockets, a twinge of black licorice, more muddled dark and bruised fruitiness, and some zesty earthy, leafy, and herbal verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite pervasive in its palate-tingling frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and sort of smooth, as the silky cocoa essences start to contend with a minor bit of booze ingress. It finishes off-dry, but not by that much, as the bittering aspect of the Millennium hops comes 'round full bore.

Overall, this is one patently drinkable version of the style, as the hops do well to offset the big chocolate and caramel sweetness, and the 21-proof alcohol measure essentially keeps to itself. I'm not entirely sure that we need a 'winter intervention' right now (hey, we're Canadian, so we're used to this stuff), but I appreciate this offering all the same.