Four Seasons Of Mother Earth - Winter 2015
Mother Earth Brew Co.

 

 

 

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. 2015 bottle, properly cellared. Pours pitch black, opaque in the glass with a fine half finger light brown head with great retention and lots of lacing. Aroma of lightly toasted dark malt, vanilla, milk chocolate and light bourbon, nutty. Flavor is toasted malt, nuts (tastes more like hazelnuts than peanut butter), milk chocolate, vanilla and bourbon. Finishes with nuts and bourbon. Medium bodied with light creaminess. A quite nice and mellow imperial stout with good solid nut flavor, which smells and tastes more like shelled nuts than peanuts, but providing a nice nut brown style flavor that melds well with the stout malt. The bourbon is most noticeable in the finish, good whiskey flavors without being boozy. A great combination of flavors and well balanced, I like this a lot. Well done.

 

It pour a dark brown that turns to black as it forms a very nice but short lived tan head. Is smells sweet, like vanilla ice cream on a chocolate cake with coffee nearby. It makes me anxious to taste it. Silky smooth texture. Initially the dominant aroma is vanilla but soon changes to chocolate & brown sugar. I'm missing the peanut butter which is good because I'm not a fan of it. The flavor us not overly sweet, no bitterness & an interesting blend of chocolate & vanilla & barrel flavors. Coffee, brown sugar, grain, whiskey & all the aforementioned flavors are all there & deliciously so. It seems to have lost too much carbonation producing its impressive head but other that that it's great.

 

Pours dark with a thin tan head. Smells and tastes of vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter. The bourbon really comes out as it warms. Very smooth beer. I would drink this many times over.

 

 

 

 

 

This beer is bourbon barrel aged Sin Tax.

Pours an opaque black with a foamy dark khaki head that settles to a partial film on top of the beer. Foamy rings of lace line the glass on the drink down. Smell is of dark roasted malt, cocoa powder, roasted peanut, hazelnut, cream, and slight wood aromas. Taste is much the same with cocoa powder, chocolate syrup, roasted peanut, hazelnut, caramel, vanilla, and slight bourbon flavors on the finish. There is a mild amount of bitterness on the palate with each sip. This beer has a lower level of carbonation with a slightly crisp and medium bodied mouthfeel. Overall, this is a good beer with interesting hazelnut qualities that are much more noticeable than the bourbon barrel aging to me.

Serving type: bottle.

It looks great. There's more than an inch of initial head that settle into a pretty healthy layer that does not fade, and there is tons of lacing on the glass.
At first the smell is a combination of nice whiskey barrel and some artificial, almost paint-like chemical component. However, if you let it warm up, it starts to smell like some kind of a cross between peanut butter and vanilla ice cream. It definitely smells like it's going to be way too sweet, but it's still a good and engaging smell. It still smells a bit artificial, but it makes me very curious what the flavor is going to be.
The whisky is actually quite well integrated into the beer. You can taste it if you are patient and pay attention, but it doesn't dominate. The overall flavor is a little hard to pin down. I'm getting a milky, vanilla sweetness and some kind of dessert flavoring that's not obviously peanut butter. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm "damning with faint praise." It's enjoyable -- certainly enjoyable to somebody like me who has a sweet-tooth -- I'm just having a hard time finding words for the flavors that I'm picking up. It's unique.
It could be more chewy, but I'd say the level of carbonation is spot-on.
This beer is hard to pin down. I'm definitely enjoying drinking it, but... what *is* that flavor? It seems so familiar, and yet, I can't find the right words for it. Peanut butter, milk chocolate, coffee, and stevia mixed together in a Maker's Mark bottle?