Coffee Shop Vibes - Colombian Huila Noir
Side Project Brewing

750 mL bottle. Bottled 1/2020. Inky black. Smells of coffee, a touch of green pepper, roasted malt, sweet, and a little nutty. Tastes sweet and fudgy. Coffee that turns just a little bit green peppery. Sweet finish. Hints of soy sauce in the very back end. Heavy, sweet, slow to drink. I remember the Peruvian coffee version being ridiculously sweet. This is sweet, but not undrinkably sweet.

 

 

 

 

Pours black with a finger of khaki foam. Head retention is poor, with an oily consistency killing the bubbles. Aroma is thick, dense and chewy roasty, toasty, nutty and caramely malts with medium-roast coffee cutting thru the mix. Chocolate and toffee add a little sweetness. Flavor profile is roasty, toasty, nutty and caramely malts with dense coffee behind. Coffee is medium-roast and medium-bodied with a rindy chocolate that adds a firm touch of sweetness and smoothness to each and every sip. Mouth feel is thick with a dense and chewy grain to each sip. Overall, rich stout with hearty coffee, it's exactly what a 13% ABV stout named Coffee Shop Vibes would imply.

Served in a 15.5oz Spiegalau tulip from a 750mL bottle. Bottled 01/20/2020, reviewed & consumed 06/19/2020.

This one pours a very dark black color, with a mocha brown head, and a bit of lacing.

This smells like rich dark chocolate, roasty coffee, caramel, dark fruit, and mocha.

There's a lot of coffee here, and there's none of the occasional off flavors you get in coffee stouts. It's roasty, rich, chocolate, vanilla, caramel, etc, with lots of dark and milk chocolate from the base.

This is thick and creamy, with a really great drinkability to it.

I've only had a few of the different entries in this series, but they've all been extremely tasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow some stouts look angrier than others, more black, yet also more burnt in a way. It might be that CSV is so viscous it stains the glass with a brown-yellow hue. The tan head it builds is short yet dense and creamy, dying quickly to a thin blanket leaving some wavy arms of lace on the glass.

Deliciously creamy and smooth, this version is mocha ice cream in a straight up waffle cone. Yet somehow there's a bitter bite that tries admirably to bring a little balance to this sticky, viscous uber stout, before a little heat comes out in the swallow.

poured from a 750mL bottle into an oversized snifter. a gentler pour yields a pitch black liquid with minimal mocha brown head. smell is chocolate-covered coffee. there’s no general stout roastiness to this beer, which i can totally get behind. taste is coffee forward but the base stout in all its thick, chocolatey goodness plays a big role in why this is thee #1 non-BA stout on the market and has been since its inception. truth be told, it’s better than a good lot of BA stouts. a huge, viscous mouthfeel is the icing on the cake. it’s a meal in a glass, so come hungry. so enjoyable from start to finish.