Pastry Stoutful - Raspberry Vanilla
Shades Brewing

this is good, no denying it, but my fear is that we are losing a great and competent brewery to a couple of series of flavored ales, between the sour, the slurry, and now this, im not sure what is left of shades, and it bums me out. it is a shame that this is their course, even though they are doing it well, i think others who have gone down this road, it is already defining them. that said, as a beer, this is very good, its a big old roasty stout first with some obvious sweetness to it, a fine base for all the things they are probably going to do to it in the future, but especially so for raspberry and vanilla, which are desserty and sweet too, pretty highly dosed, readily identifiable, and fully compatible with the base beer in a synergistic way. the berry has just a little tartness to offset some of the sugar and provide needed textural contrast, while the vanilla is natural and lingering through the finish, bringing out the chocolate character in the malt ina sort of fudge-like way. this clings to the teeth a bit and has a lot of body, but its also well carbonated for the style which i like, and isnt alcoholic to me at all. this isnt a style i am ever going to gush about, but they did a fine job with it, its less offensive and more real to me than a lot of its peers in terms of the added flavors, but i just dont want to see shades go too much further in this direction, bring it back a little bit, give me a tasty packaged lager and a classic american pale just to break up the trendy stuff...