Country Western: Volume 8 (Cinnamon Toast)
Country Boy Brewing

 

As seamless as cinnamon and toast, the brewers of both West Sixth and Country Boy team up for their 8th annual Country Western release. With a tease of breakfast toast lurking in the glass, the Imperial Milk Stout collaborative beer might as well be fit for dessert as well.

Very dark brown to the eye, the Stout is easily mistaken for French press coffee. Capped with a creamy broken froth, Cinnamon Toast Country Western immediately teases the nose with generous spice additions of cinnamon, sugar, coffee and molasses. Much of that same brown sugar and molasses maltiness translates to a robustly sweet taste early on the tongue.

As the malt sweetness nestles onto the middle palate, the stronger taste of espresso, bittersweet chocolate, roasted walnut, burnt toast and a soilish overtone soon overtakes the settling sweetness for a slightly drier finish. But the spices of cinnamon and char elevates through the late palate for an overly toasted french toast character.

Full bodied, creamy with a slight vanilla and aspartame linger, the flavored stout trends more are more charrish as the session endures, leading to a long and roasted espresso aftertaste.

No canning date (released on 8/1/20, so presumably canned within a few days of that date)

Pours a jet-brown body capped with a finger of light khaki foam; sub-par head retention leaves paper-thin islands of cap, a moderate, creamy collar, and large blotches of soapy lacing strewn around the glass.

Aroma flows with a decadent, creamy array of milk-softened Graham cracker and beautifully attenuated cinnamon setting an impressive tone; a healthy dose of roasted malts and hints of milk chocolate presenting over time add further depth to a true breakfast stout bouquet.

Taste opens with hints of cinnamon and brown sugar transitioning to burnt Graham cracker over the mid-palate; milk chocolate develops slightly on the back end as tones of creamy lactose take more of a background position and a malty char lingers past the finish.

Mouthfeel brings a light-medium body, slick alongside a vague, mild carbonation; increasingly creamy over the mid-palate, it thins slightly on the back end, though remains consistent; minimal malty grit through the finish makes for a forgettable yet effortless swallow.

Authentic aromas of breakfast time truly burst from this one, setting the tone for a stout that's never cloying and appropriately intense in flavor; it does waver in consistency at times, though can undoubtedly be appreciated for its more undemanding and easygoing qualities, and for presenting one of the finest uses of lactose in a stout I've experienced to-date.