Mocha Stout
Perth Brewery

473 mL can from the LCBO; no canning date. Listed at 4.9% and served barely chilled.

Pours a deep mahogany brown with port-coloured highlights; one finger of soapy, bubbly beige head collapses within two minutes. A sudsy collar is left surrounding a patchy film on the surface, with a handful of lace strands flung about in its wake; looks ok so far. Roasted grains and chocolate brownies on the nose, with hints of root beer, vanilla, and subtle notes of black coffee.

Palatable enough for a light stout; my main gripe is that the fakeness of the chocolate & vanilla extracts make it difficult to suspend my disbelief. Roasted grains and ash early on, subsumed by chocolate syrup/extract, molasses and vanilla by mid-sip. Nice coffee flavours, building towards the finish where they add some much-needed bitterness to this stout's sweet profile. Finishes right back where it started, with roasted grains and ash dissipating into a dry-ish aftertaste. Light-medium in body, with gentle carbonation that rolls along the surface of the tongue, lending some crispness to this silky-smooth stout. Good drinkability; I might be persuaded into drinking a second glass.

Final Grade: 3.61, a B grade. Perth's Mocha Stout ain't half bad, and it's actually surprisingly flavourful for only 4.9%. If only those flavours had a bit more authenticity - and just to be clear, I'm not saying that extracts are bad by default - just that they need to be used delicately. Here, the vanilla's just fine, and I also enjoyed the coffee, but the chocolate extract is a little overused IMO. Not at all a worldbeater, but it's a serviceable coffee stout that's worth a shot, and one of the best Perth products I've tried thus far.

At my lady Pamela's house; canned and chilled, from the University Ave. West LCBO in nearby downtown Windsor. My first beer from the Perth, Ontario brewery.

A-Coca cola brown with an almond cream coloured head
S-Aroma notes of raisin and prunes with milk and coffee underneath
M-Watery body with medium carbonation and a lacklustre mouthfeel
T-Dry upfront with an assertive bitterness that lasts
O-Fair stout, not very punchy

Pours like a brown ale, dark tan with some deep amber. Small foam head that disappears to a trace quickly.
Coffee forward with subtle undertones of chocolate. Just a hint of sweetness afterwards with a whisp of vanilla. Easy to miss it. Perhaps more a cappuccino than a mocha?
Feels pleasant and leaves a slightly nutty aftertaste.

December 9 beer from Nita’s 2021 Beer Advent Calendar
Pours black with a thick 2cm tan head. I get chocolate/coffee combo on the nose. Coffee dominates the flavour with coco and some nuttiness in the background. I don’t taste any smoke in this beer and that’s quite alright with me.
Dec 9 2021

 

Look: A dark chestnut brown with a strong 1 1/2 finger head of fluffy tawny foam. The head has great retention, fading to a nice lacing that lasts forever.

Smell: Slightly soapy and earthy. Backbone of mocha and coffee, but the hops really shine through.

Taste: So hear is where things get interesting. Definate espresso note through the middle, and hints of mocha and vanilla can be picked up. The espresso kicks up a bit at the back end but the overwhelming surprise given the style is the piney hops. It's like they brewery is trying to combine a mocha stout with a west coast IPA. An interesting experiment, but not on style at all.

Feel: Light bodied and crisp. Very mineral water like. The beer plays strongest on the side of the tongue and at the top of the palate after swallowed. Again, not bad, but not on style or what I would expect

Strangely this beer is branded given the can design as a straigh ahead chocolate and espresso stout. It is not. The out of character hops take center stage. This earns a B. It's a pairing of styles I never knew I wanted, and while it doesn't turn out bad, it's not better than fair.

473 ml can served fairly cold into a pint glass. LCBO purchase for $3.35 CDN. Canning date seems to be December 13, 2020.

Appearance - Dark brown beer, slight hints of red when held directly to the light. Clear and capped with two fingers of superbly long lasting tan head. Good swaths of lacing cling to the glass.

Smell - Coffee first and foremost with lots of chocolate in behind truly giving a mocha like aroma. Some other roasty grains.

Taste - Initially sweet with lots of powdered chocolate then transitions to a bit more coffee flavored and certainly more bitter, Medium bitterness in the aftertaste.

Mouthfeel - Full, rich and pretty cream, carbonation is medium-light and the beer has a silky quality that makes great for imbibing quickly.

Overall - A very solid coffee/ chocolate stout that is sweeter than some but definitely not too sweet and is quite enjoyable and well worth the price of admission. I could see picking up a couple more cans in the increasingly crowded rotation as this Mocha Stout is a tasty one.

 

Poured with a thumb's worth of head that retained well. The body is as black as night with a slight red tinge when held up to the light. Smells of roasted chocolate malt and coffee as it really leans into the Mocha name, and didn't need substantial warming to get there. Chocolate malt to start with hints of vanilla that turns to mild espresso that seems restrained by an almost resin note that I figure is coming from the hops. Surprisingly the aftertaste is very clean with old the mild coffee and chocolate notes coming forward. The body is just think enough to be in proper stout territory, but only just but it drinks very well and is more of a milder experience more fit for slow morning whereas a more aggressive coffee experience would probably better fit a busier day.