Maman (2020)
Perennial Artisan Ales

 

Look - black and thick with great lacing and a tan head
Smell - chocolate fudge with a slight spice and barrel
Taste - sweet chocolate tobacco boosy lots of barrel
Feel - pretty thick creamy slight carb
Overall - pretty solid

Pours jet black with a still, no foam look. Heavy oily legs cling to the glass after the lightest of swirls. It looks like motor oil that's been run hard through a motor for ten thousand miles - thick, dark, and viscous. Aroma pushes dark fruits, plum, and chocolate across the nose first. Char, barrel, bourbon, and hearty roasty and toasty malts sit behind. Dark fruits is the dominate note, at least, immediately out of the fridge. Mild brownie shows up as the beer warms. Flavor profile is dark fruits, caramel, toffee, tobacco, raisins, fig, plum, and chocolate. The blend of notes conjours up throughts of barleywines, but retains heavy stout notes via late roasty and toasty malts. Bourbon, barrel, and char are all present to varying degrees, molding into the 14.6% ABV well. Brownie and more chocolate start to show up as the beer warms, masking some of hte initial dark fruit notes. It really develops a wonderful depth to the flavor profile after a fairly simplistic aroma. Mouth feel is thick and viscious, but with an otherwise flat and still effervescence. Overall, a blend of hearty stout and barleywine notes. It has a lot of dark fruits for a heavy stout, but despite that, retains a good balance despite being in wine alcohol territory. Massive slug, so -0.25 from overall.

Served in a 15.5oz Speigelau tulip from a 750mL bottle. 2020 Vintage. Consumed/reviewed 02/12/2023 as a Super Bowl warm-up for Chiefs vs. Eagles!