The Dude
Westfield River Brewing Company

The review from CLdanmom nailed it. It's sour and bitter, and tastes terrible. Like, fizzy water spoiled by spoiled fruit and rotten malt. I think that they tried too hard with the coffee flavors, but it still doesn't explain the overall awfulness. I bought 4 cans, and threw it out after gently nursing 5 sips over 5 minutes. Because I burped, and decided that it wasn't worth the punishment or tasting the fumes even if I did choke it down.

PS, I registered just to warn others to stay away from this terrible concoction. Seriously, how can a stout "brewed with cold brew coffee, vanilla bean, and chocolate malt" turn out like fruit fly vomit?

It’s like cold burnt coffee from a gas station that sat in a stainless steel carafe for 3 days with an undertone of chewed oatmeal and spit out chocolate whoppers that where baby birded into a can. Topped off with with frothy goodness of seagull shit. And I love a good oatmeal stout. This wasn’t it. *my associate, also with adventuresome tastebuds immediately spit it into and poured the rest into the sink. It wasn’t just me.

Great name, no can date

Pours a light fizzy head with basically no retention, light lacing, decent legs, basically black color

Nose brings dark malts, a bit of roast and a little smokey, a little strange ashy like thing that smells a bit like a smokey candle or something, i think it's the heavy vanilla spice combining with over roasted coffee, some vanilla ice cream and light coffee ice cream as well, a little dark chocolate and cocoa powder

Taste brings more of the ashy note with a little roast and smokey notes, over-roasted coffee (which might be the ashy note), raw vanilla, a little coffee and vanilla ice cream mixed again with creamy oats, light bitterness, drier kinda flat finish

Mouth is med to lighter bod and feels thin for the creaminess, light foamy carb

Overall not a big fan of this one, the coffee seems over roasted and gets ashy and adds some unpleasant characters to the beer, it also feels really thin for oatmeal stout, vanilla is OK but adds some over spice characters, not that enjoyable

 

 

I presume this beer was named after Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski, from the movie 'The Big Lebowski'. It has cold-brewed coffee, vanilla beans and chocolate in it, so there is a slight resemblance to the White Russians that 'The Dude' loved to drink. The movie is a classic, and this beer has some special qualities too. I didn't taste the vanilla beans, but as this beer was part of a flight of 4 beers, as opposed to a full serving, my taste buds might have been slightly compromised. I'll give it another try the next time I get over to the brewery.