Orchid's Repose
Blank Slate Brewing Company

Prime for winter consumption, Blank Slate's British-style stout offers a robust and roasted set of flavor that acts in balance to the generous additions of cranberry for a taste that's just as curious as it its well balanced.

Its basic black pour has the ire of espresso as a creamy latte-like mocha swirls. Its tinge of garnet suggests something other than classic stout flavors is to come. Bright berry aromas strike first with the underlayment of coffee, chocolate and burnt toast adding a firm support underneath. Its taste however leads with the roasty and robust flavors along with the supple savory taste of wonderfully burnt sugars.

As the flavors develop over the middle, the roasted taste, seemingly of fresh-brewed coffee link up with the acidity in the fruit for a bitter and tangy complexity. The bright fruit flavor balances the dark roast masterfully. Where a dessert-like taste happens as the bittersweet chocolates wrap around the juiciness of the fruit for a complex and challenging taste for the culinary adventurous.

Its finish is bitter with coffee-like bite and mild fruit and roast-derived astringency, bringing the body to a medium status with a malty-dry, tannic finish. Light mineral and a plaster-like texture rounds out the session as an aftertaste of coffee and cranberry trek onward.