Monday (2017)
Cycle Brewing

650 mL bottle. Black with a small head. Smells of bourbon, coffee, oak, and chocolate. Taste follows. No single flavor overwhelms. Coffee and oak temper chocolate sweetness with a nice bourbon backdrop. Not as sweet or alcoholic as other Cycle stouts. Very flavorful and drinks easily.

Picked this up recently & sampled it before deciding to write a review, because really, a 2017 coffee stout? Doesn't seem fair. Except it is. Split with my wife who is downstairs rotting her brain on The Bachelorette.

Black. A hard pour doesn't raise much & falls away to a thin fence around the edge quickly. The nose is plenty of *roast* along with booze & oak.

Monday raises the obvious question - no, not that one - why can some brewers put coffee in a beer & it lasts, while others only create long term notes of green peppers & disappointment? It's a real mystery. Time has taken all the edges off this beer. Smooth, languorous barrel, gentle coffee, touch of prune, oak that's been sanded & weathered within an inch of its life. Vanilla & alcohol intrude on the finish, with the latter lingering like an unwelcome virus. If this came in pounders I'd happily take one on a weeknight, two on a weekend.

While no doubt much changed from its birth - and aren't we all - this one has aged more gracefully than me. Primary components have melded into a harmonic whole. Lovely beer.

Poured from a bomber into a Dogfish Head tulip

L: Inky black pour... 1 solid finger of tannish head. Nice ring of lacing.

S: Dark chocolate, French roast coffee, booze, and roast.

T.F: Just like it smells. Rich and dark... burned sugars and roasted malts. Strong chocolate... espresso... and bourbon. Vanilla, baked raisin, and oak. Sweetness nicely balances out the roast bitterness. Medium to thick bodied... creamy carbonation and smooth. Warming... and more complex as it comes up to room temp.

O: A pretty outstanding barrel aged Imperial Stout. Coffee works well with the brew. Big flavor... super drinkable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got this one from desp59 a while back. Cheers, man!

From a bomber into a snifter
Imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with coffee

APPEARANCE: Clear black pour yields a three finger, medium looking, somewhat fizzy dark tan head with good retention. Black body with lower levels of carbonation evident. Head slowly crackles down to a decent wisp but misses lacing. Looks a little flat by the end and no real lacing is left on the glass.

SMELL: Strong aroma right out of the bottle, with lots of roasted coffee and sweet cream, vanilla, butterscotch, bourbon and milk chocolate. Aromatic with some good oak, barrel character and coffee. Great.

TASTE: Bourbon, vanilla and sweet cream, toffee sweetness and some sweet, roasted coffee up front. Very flavorful with lots going on. Some barrel and bitter coffee at the swallow with a strong, bold and persistent finish of bourbon, oak, vanilla and butterscotch sweetness, bitter-sweet coffee flavors, milk chocolate and Irish cream. Very well put together with plenty of barrel, sweet creamy flavors and coffee working in excellent harmony.

PALATE: Medium –fuller body and medium levels of carbonation. Creamy on the palate, goes down smooth with a bit of a scratch and finishes quite mouth-coating. A bit of heat lingers.

OVERALL: Awesomeness all over this place. The look is a little average, but the rest of it is top notch. The base stout is excellent, while the barrel elements and the coffee additions are extremely well executed. Everything is definitely in the right place here. Even more evidence that Cycle and I were made for each other. Thanks again, desp. Outstanding.