The Oligarch - Champurrado
Breakside Brewery - SE Taproom

Taster at brewery, from bottle. Black, flat, small collar of beige head. As with the rest of the series, its very subtle, dark, mexican chocolate being the most prominent. For whatever reason, this one is also bone dry.

 

 

Clean, near black, with a smooth ring of khaki foam.

Chocolate, spices, nutty, aromas. Touches of grain and vanilla. Smells delicious.

Flavor follows with chocolate, spice, and nuttiness. There's a unique flavor I can't quite figure out, but can only assume it's derived from the "toasted corn".

Silky smooth feel, but a bit light in body. Mild alcohol presence, almost no carbonation, and thus a very easy to drink concoction.

Of the variants, Piedmontese still takes the cake. This is a pretty good one, but I am having a hard time deciding how I feel about that "unique" flavor. Cheers.

 

 

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque black in the glass with a thin, dark khaki head that dissipates to patches with nice lacing. Aroma of dark toasted malt, milk chocolate, vanilla and a hint of cinnamon. Flavor is semi-sweet dark toasted and caramel malt, milk chocolate, vanilla, toffee and a bare hint of cinnamon. Medium bodied with light creaminess. Sadly, the last bottle of this series in the fridge, but a tasty one to finish the run. Like the others, the malt body is closer to a foreign stout in flavor and a bit lighter than a RIS. But like the rest, there's no reason to complain. The chocolate does bring Mexican chocolate to mind, making this a dessert stout profile. All flavors are in harmony, with the cinnamon the lightest note, which is probably for the best as it can be a dominating flavor. It was a leap of faith to buy one of each of these, but it was worth the price and effort. I'm again impressed they pulled off this complicated multi-barrel and blend series and that all turned out so well. Great job.