Ah Stout Chocolate Caramel Cupcake Stout
Sawdust City Brewing Co.

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Dec 7 2022 and served barely chilled.

Pours opaque black-brown with port wine-hued highlights, producing more than two fingers of fluffy, foamy, beige-coloured head that collapses within three or four minutes' time. Several arcing swaths of lace are flung about in its wake, with a sudsy collar and cap living on. Smells a lot like cocoa rice krispie squares - i.e. cocoa, sugar/marshmallow and cereal, but with added layers of caramel syrup, roasted grains and dark chocolate.

It's tasty, but also kinda bipolar, running the gamut from tooth-rottingly sweet at the forefront, to bitter & roasty towards the finish. Milk chocolate, cocoa and marshmallow flavours come first, with rich caramel sweetness developing by mid-sip. Dark chocolate, roasted grain and burnt sugar at the finish, with caramel, cake and cocoa reverberating into the aftertaste. Medium in body, with low carbonation and a silky-smooth mouthfeel; easy enough to toss back at nearly 6%, but one per session is plenty.

Final Grade: 3.91, a B+. Sawdust City's Ah Stout is a solid sweet stout, and a decent approximation of the pastry/cupcake it's themed after. Along the same lines as their Viva Puff-inspired stout, this is actually very good for a novelty beer, but it's also something I'd only consume sparingly - i.e. only when I really feel the need to sate my sweet tooth. Worth a shot - I'd buy this again, but only sporadically.

Pours black with cherry glints on the sides of the glass. The compact tan head has good retention. The aroma is of dark chocolate, caramel and roasted malts. The taste is chocolatey and roasty with decedent caramel and lactic sweetness in there. The mouthfeel is full bodied with light carbonation. Light bitterness and plenty of dark chocolate and roasted malts in the long finish.

A nice Milk Stout that's dry for the style. Stout fans should try this.

473 ml can served cold into a beer mug. LCBO purchase for around $4.35 CDN. Canned October 13, 2022.

Appearance - Chestnut brown in color and pours near black with a decadent frothy two finger head on top. Impressive head retention and obviously the bubbles are nearly impossible to see.

Smell - Chocolate and caramel and cake are all on the nose with a sweet breadiness combining with the caramel and the chocolate aromas. Light roasty backbone.

Taste - Quite sweet initially, chocolate cake and caramel aspects doing work with a slight marshmallow presence. Finishes more bitter and roasty than expected as the sweetness doesn't carry through. That's a good thing but the finish is perhaps more bitter than expected.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied, carbonation is low and maybe a bit thinner than expected.

Overall - Initial marks indicate some sweet decadence, but I find the tail thin watery and a bit too bitter to make this a truly enjoyable experience. Decent enough brew and does nail the Ah Caramel flavor oh so well initially (Thank you Vachon), but just wish a little more of the chocolate and cake flavor held on through the tail. Nonetheless a nice follow up to Viva La Stout (Inspired by Viva Puffs) from prior years.

 

 

Look: Dark cola brown, with a solid one finger tawny and coco head. The head pulls back to a solid 1/2 finger after 5 minutes.

Smell: Sweet and rich. Chocolate milk, brown sugar and cookie dough.

Taste: Bitter burnt chocolate, super sugary and adjunct heavy. Caramel sweetness is over present.

Feel: Rich and well bodied but very artificial and it leaves a very syrupy coating in your mouth.

Very artificial, with an overwhelming dark chocolate bitterness. They are trying to recreate the flavour of a Vachon Ah Caramel cake with this beer. That was never a treat I was happy to find in my luch bag as a kid....so I can't say if they were successful, but as I didn't like the taste of this beer they might be spot on....who knows. If you loved those treats worth a try. If not I'd pass it by. A B- beer for me.