All 5th Anniversary Everything - Banana
Other Half Brewing - Center Street

 

Poured from a bottle (purchased 09Feb2019) and poured into a small glass taster

L: pours a very dark black brown with a very minimal brown head that fades after a couple minutes. No lacing, as expected. Some wine-like legs

S: get this rich banana bread aroma, not nearly as sweet as I expected in a great way. Chocolate and banana lead, get more coconut than vanilla but both are there. Slight abv heat but minimal, I may be hunting for it

T: follows the nose incredibly well, rich banana flavor with waves of vanilla and coconut. Get lots of chocolate, pretty impressive considering no nibs etc. in the beer. Fairly sweet (as expected) but not cloying which is a pleasant surprise. Feel I have a hard time identifying almonds in stouts - I’m sure it’s there, just not sure what exactly it is (or what I’m conflating it with). Even less abv on the swallow than the nose, far too easy to drink in that regard

F: heavy- body, light+ carbonation, abv warming for sure but no heat to this brew, wonderfully viscous

O: a really amazing stout. Huge, full flavored, not showing much of anything in terms of age. Just excellent, and with two years in the bottle no less!

 

 

 

 

500ml bottle. Snifter glass. The legs on this beer is amazing. Thick legs. Almost syrupy on the pour. Dark brown body, one finger offwhite head, good retention, bit of lacing. Smell is amazing. Wow. Maybe not so much the banana, but massive coconut, vanilla, chocolate, tons of cake frosting. It's a pastry stout, delicious nose through and through. Flavour is very sweet, as the adjuncts all up on the nose figured. Big chocolate, cake frosting, vanilla, caramel and coconut. So much sweetness going on here, it's astounding. Body is massive viscosity, extremely chewy. Thick, full bodied, definitely a high gravity beer with all the particulates that have to be in this beer. Amazing flavour and chewiness all around.

 

poured into a taster glass via draft at Other Half's Pastry Town (3/16/2019)

color is a jet black

smell is sweet bananas, vanilla and maple

taste is smooth creamy bananas up front mixed in nicely with the maple

low carbonation

mouth feel is full and sticky sweet

wow..wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did..but this was a surprise and a total winner..OH keeps turning the level up on their stouts and this is a crowning achievement..PLEASE MAKE MORE!!!

 

 

**
04/05/19

Bottle to snifter; shared with DC, thanks to DC.

LOOK: super thick black, no head- just a hint of tan lacing.
AROMA: mostly banana, with a hint of vanilla,
TASTE: brown sugar and vanilla, raison,fig,....coconut comes very late and very miniscule. Very sweet.
FEEL: warming, syrupy, thick,

Justifying the overall 4.75 by synergy in that this is a special and unique and well crafted beer where the total experience is greater than the sum of the attributes.
**

 

 

Picked this up when Other Half released it a few weeks back. I was eager to give it a go, as their other Stouts from recent releases have been great and this one certainly didn't disappoint. Smooth, easy to enjoy and full of banana flavor, this was full of fruit and nearly felt like a banana split when all was said and done. If you like that flavor with something sweet and reminiscent of ice cream, then you've certainly found your match here!

Good pour to this as the liquid was dark, smooth, and full of chocolate. The head was worthy of that as the mocha froth topped that off quite nicely. Very thin rings of lacing were left behind as I sipped this as it was unlike anything I had ever seen before in a beer's residue. The taste and mouthfeel were what set this apart as this beer was incredibly smooth, silky, and full of soft banana that never let up throughout my session. Cream pie, vanilla bean, and strawberry cream filled the taste as this was one of the most decadent and enjoyable beers that I've ever had the privilege of reviewing on here. In spite of it's sweetness, powder, and heft, this was quite hard to keep in my glass throughout my session!

Yes, this was strong and yes, this was potent but with so much to savor here, you'd be hard-pressed to notice the booze that was present here. If you like banana splits, banana cream pies, bananas foster, or anything with chocolate and bananas in it - get your hands on this! It will take your appreciation of the flavor to a whole new level without you even realizing it, as this beer was worthy of Other Half's fifth anniversary. Such a winner of a brew if there ever was one...

 

This one pours a fairly dark black color, looks thick and syrupy, with a tiny head, and no lacing.

This smells unreal good - there's caramelized and roasted banana, coconut cream, maple sugar, molasses, chocolate fudge, vanilla. I don't really get the macadamia here, but there's enough other things going on, so that it doesn't really matter.

This is really decadent. The banana comes through nicely, and it has this nice treated feel to it- like it was heavily caramelized or something. There's some maple and banana breadiness, too, along with a big coconut hit in the middle. It finishes spicy, almost like cinnamon, even though that's not in there. As with the aroma, I again don't really get the macadamia here, but that's ok.

This is really very sweet, as most people warned. Some people seemed to think that you wouldn't be able to have more than 2-3 oz, and I would disagree with that. It never got too cloying, even with splitting the bottle with one person and taking down 8 oz personally. I can't deny the syrupy character, though. The 15.4% ABV doesn't show itself at all. Craziness. The body is thick and chewy, and so rich.

This is a truly wonderful and truly silly stout here. Other Half is making the best stouts in NYS, currently.