Foreign Export Stout (FES)
Partizan Brewery

May 2013: (Damn - my notes disappeared when I had made my first rating.) On tap at Haand Beer Festival 2013, Drammen. Sampled before I had the barrel aged version. Appeared drier than the BA version, and lacks of course the oaky notes - otherwise it is much the same.

From BeerAdvocate Magazine #75 (April 2013):

Our first beer from this brewery, and a most impressive one. A robust and full-flavored Stout that’s balanced and hides its strength very well. Offers a rich, malt-forward profile, with a nice tanginess to keep the palate engaged. Deliciously deceiving. Looks like a trip to London is in order so we can get some more.

STYLE: Foreign Export Stout
ABV: 8.6%
AVAILABILITY: Rotating

LOOK: Opaque black; thick and creamy, coffee-colored head

SMELL: Cocoa, roasted malts, bread, alcohol

TASTE: Creamy, velvety, rich, dark chocolate, coffee, roasty, molasses, prunes, bready, pithy; dry, bitter finish

 

 

 

 

Given as a gift by a brewer friend of mine in London, as this brewery took over their brewing equipments after they moved house. Coming in a 330ml slim brown bottle, bottle-conditioned; bottled on 29/11/2012, BB 29/11/2015, served cool in a Hapkin’s branded short-stemmed tulip-shaped sniffer.

A: pours a pitch black colour with a well-lasting thin light-brown head; the carbonation level is hard to discern.
S: absolutely wonderful… the maltiness is complex and focused with layers of aroma, suggesting lots of chocolate and burned malts, sweet nuttiness, vanilla, mildly acidic-sweet jammy dark fruits, sweetened coffee, licorice-root, lots and lots of gristy aroma, and nut liquor; given a swirl, citrussy & earthy hoppiness and overripe pear-ish fruit esters join the chorus, alongside a really deep and aromatic winey red-grapey feel in addition to the complex malt mixture.
T: the smooth entry introduces lots of aromatic vanilla-ish chocolates, fulsome burned malts and coffee-ish tang, some black dates, burned walnuts, mild licorice-like bitter-sweetness, peppery spiciness and a decent input of (yeasty?) acidity, followed by the lingering chewy mouthfeel from both roast malts and hops, while just a semi-slick mouthfeel stays low without resulting in an overly oily or rich palate. Lots of crushed coffee-bean-ish notes and burned nuts linger at the deep end of the tongue.
M&O: the mouthfeel is gently and sufficiently carbonated, kept lively by the wonderful chewy bitterness and spiciness from the hops; full-minus bodied, the flavour profile is balanced and bold at the same time, with sweetness in check by the dry-ish bitterness and moderate acidity, endowed with a very good depth of aroma hard NOT to impress any discerned beer lover (well, of this style at least). In sum, I love this beer.