Elaborative #6
Hill Farmstead Brewery

500ml bottle poured into Durobar Charente white logo Hill Farmstead glass! Because lets not be savages...lets use that proper glassware!

bottle conditioning since September 9th 2022.

Appearance: Black bodied beer with a thin cap of khaki colored head. Head drops down to a very minimal amount of bubbles on top of this stout.

Smell: I smell more cognac notes than bourbon in the nose. Big chocolate nose. Decent oak presence in the nose as well.

Taste: Smooth & Rich bourbon barrel note featuring: caramel / brown sugar / toffee; there's a big milk chocolate punch as well. Hints of roast malt, espresso, dark fruits and that grape note of cognac emerges just enough to say hello. More bourbon barrel flavor than cognac. Lingering rich premium milk chocolate that dries out just enough to extenuate the cognac notes. As usual... Balance and layers of complexity with these Barrel aged and blended Hill Farmstead stouts. Bravo HF! Strong work.

Mouthfeel: Medium full body with low carbonation. This is not quite a pastry / motor oil status type barrel aged stout. This is so silky and textured and creamy for a 9% stout. I would think that you were lying to me if you told me this was 9% abv BA Stout. This also drinks so incredibly smooth. This beer is a texture lovers dream.

Overall: Big chocolate. Big barrel. Low abv at 9% yet it still is big and rich in the flavor profile. Quite impressive how a 9% BA Stout actually packs bold flavors and bigger body than one would think. A 9% stout would usually drinks much thinner than this HF stout; the texture/body is actually surprising.

 

You know what's really hard to do? Impress someone who's just tasted Hill Farmstead Aaron and Damon. But this collab beer did just that. So good I can't wait to visit Private Press Brewing in Santa Cruz, CA one day soon! 2020 vintage consumed in 2024 at the HF brewery. The beer pours black and syrupy with a thin yet sturdy lacing head. So much to describe in flavors, which combine to be incredibly dynamic. Contributing to the robust profile: chocolate, licorice, dates, espresso roast, bourbon and cognac. Thoroughly impressive.

Look - Black and thick with a nice slight head but great rimming and lacing
Smell - nice rich sweet barrel chocolate and Cognac
Taste - chocolate malts with brown sugar caramel a ton of barrel and bourbon and cognac
Feel - Full body creamy light carb
OVerall - great bleand, outstanding beer

Black with limited tan head and no real lacing to speak of. The bourbon and cognac while both present seem to feature more of the cognac than bourbon, with subtle notes of roasty coffee, chocolate, and date on the finish. Medium body and carbonation.

 

This one pours a fairly dark black color, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This smells like fruity cognac, milk chocolate, oak, caramelly bourbon, a touch of licorice and roasted malt, and vanilla.

This feels more successful than Elaborative Seven was. It’s still a bit sweeter than expected, but the lack of vanilla allows for interesting barrel nuances to come through. There’s some nice fruitiness and spice from cognac, and some nice vanilla and toasted oak. There’s lots of milk chocolate, a touch of licorice, some roast, and coffee-like flavors.

This is medium bodied, very creamy, and pretty rich, with sweetness lingering.

I don’t think either of these stand up to the best in this series – that would be Elaborative Three or Five. But they were still quite enjoyable.

Tried blind alongside Elaborative 7. The two are surprisingly similar and my partner guessed that this one was Elaboartive 7. Both are the sweetest stouts I've had to date from HF. The nose is spirits-forward (more bourbon than cognac) with rich milk chocolate, espresso, and dried dark fruit. Flavors are sweet and chocolatey. Mouthfeel is quite thin for the style, with moderate carbonation. Overall quite delicious albeit a bit pricey

84/100