Jam Don’t Shake
Other Half Brewing - Center Street

This one pours a flat looking dark black color, with basically no head, and no lacing.

This smells overwhelming of sweet cherry syrupy, and not much else - I don't get any peanut butter, or basically anything else.

The cherry is just so heavy handed here, it adds simultaneously too much sweetness and also a tart cherry note that just overwhelms anything the base stout might have been trying to do. I get some basic milk chocolate, but really no peanut butter at all here - that might have helped mitigate the cherry tsunami I'm dealing with here.

This is medium bodied, syrupy, and weirdly prickly on the finish - the carbonation is slightly weird here.

There's not much to like here, unfortunately. I probably waited too long to have it, but I also can't imagine it was that good fresh.

2020 bottle released over the last week, it pours pitch black color with a 1-2 finger thick brown foamy head that crackling sounds as it dissipated slowly and left minimal spotty lacing. Nose has a ton of cherry, chocolate, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, dark fruit and a sugary sweetness that points to the cherries being the star of the show.

Like the smell, the flavor is full of cherries, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, smoked malts, soy sauce, molasses, dark fruit, cola like Coke or RC, faint vanilla, peanut butter and brownie batter. Hints of bourbon and oaky notes come through after the cherry sweetness subsides. This is really complex and tasty, plus it tastes like the tart cherry that starts things off. As it warmed up I got notes of plum, baker’s chocolate, brown sugar, caramel, Tootsie Rolls, and sadly only trace amounts of peanut butter. It drank kind of like a cold glass of cherry juice dumped in a stout. A nice dessert beer to split, but it’s a tad bit too sweet for me and I wish it had stronger peanut butter flavor. It was also $22 per bottle...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picked this up a few weeks at Other Half and also got it's twin from Grimm with the expectation that both would be great but slightly different from each other. As was to be expected, this took me back to school as a kid since this beer felt like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich fermented with chocolate and made just a bit more tart with the presence of cherries. Quite sweet, this was a slow sipper but enjoyable beyond the novelty factor...

Of course, the pour to this was quite dark with a massive pile of bubbly head on top that looked like chocolate mousse that took it's time to settle down. Tons of lacing was left behind as I I sipped this as it was a solid as *any* lacing that I've ever seen in my years of imbibing in malted barley beverages. Loads of cherry, jelly, high fructose corn syrupy-sugar, tartness, and liquid chocolate in the nose as I was pulled into this from the first whiff. The oil and slickness from the peanut butter came through in the mouthfeel, even if the taste and stickiness from it wasn't easily discernible.

To be fair, this was a strong beer that didn't feel it until the slight boozy sensation took hold of me near the end of my time with this. The jelly, fruit, and chocolate hid the alcohol well and I could have sworn that a bit of the peanut butter got caught up in my esophagus. It was light for an Imperial Stout and well-brewed to the point where it took me back to a simpler time. Not many beers put a smile on my face but this did the trick and was further proof of how well Other Half is at their craft. Fun stuff that stood out from the pack!