Laika Boss
4 Noses Brewing Company

 

 

12 oz can. Pours dark brown with a small fizzy brown head that quickly goes to a thin collar with leaves a little lacing.

The aroma is sweet grainy roasted chocolate malts with perfumey lactose and black licorice.

The flavor is very sweet lactose and grainy malts with some black licorice and a bit of a vegetal alcohol finish. The mouthfeel is pretty thin and watery.

Overall, not very good.

Rich, robust and yet smooth, the seasonal stout of 4 Noses charges in with top dog attitude that screams about all-things-roasted, malty and powerful.

Laika Boss catches the nose immediately with a verbose scent of coffee, char, chocolate, nuttiness and campfire even as the pour comes with a deep tar coloration and a creamy separation of sandy froth. Lightly lacy, the beer lays tracks of burnt sugars, cream and cocoa on the front of the tongue with those early introductions.

Its roasty sweetness slathers across the middle palate with a taste that's reminiscent of the burnt edges of baked brownies. Black walnut, bittersweet chocolate and roasted marshmallows also come to mind before the kaluha-like booze and soilish coffee commands the finish. Turkish in its blend, the earthiness of smoldering embers, bark-like bitterness and a long, sweet ash late palate keep the complexities alive.

Full in body, the creamy lavishness is akin to silky smooth burnt cream. Alcohol spice prickles away gently on the gullet while a bitter coffee and smoky chocolate taste resonates deep on the after palate while hints of dark, dried fruit and star anise spice offer one last glimpse of flavor.

 

 

This is more of a russian imperial porter :D

This was really nice drinking beer, but I think people are expecting something bigger. I don't buy many stouts more than once, but I see that happening here.

Look - super dark syrup with no real head
Smell - super toasty and malty, dark chocolate
Taste - to sweet but still good. Dark chocolate and slight coffee
Feel - medium syrup body and very light carbonation
Overall - couple be less sweet and more toastiness with more carbonation

 

 

Initial impression from a can:

Has a misplaced blueberry flavour mingling with the more conventional dark malt sweetness and specialty chocolate malt at the heart of the beer. ABV is well-disguised. I'm not getting any roasted barley, unfortunately.

Reticent and somewhat shallow, with flavours that aren't particularly vivid or expressive. I'm reticent to call it well balanced since there just isn't that much going on here - especially considering the style, which at its best calls amongst its members some of the most intricately layered beers currently brewed worldwide.

A shrug of an attempt at a Russian Imperial Stout from 4 Noses, but a drinkable one - and I guess I'll contend that it's above average in spite of its shallowness and relative simplicity. I'll happily finish off the 4 pack I bought, but it's far from a unique or special beer. In a state in which you're up against Ten Fidy, you've just got to bring more to the table.

C+ (3.07) / ABOVE AVERAGE

5-22

From a 12 oz can (canned November 11, 2016) to snifter.

A-The beer is black as night beneath about a half-finger of foam. The head is medium-tan and it fades steadily to a film on top of the glass. No lacing is left behind. Some fine carbonation keeps a collar of foam active as I drink.

S-The aroma is on the sweet side with hints of brown sugar, milk chocolate, milk sugar, and blueberry. Very smooth with less roast than I would expect.

T-The taste tracks the smell closely. The beer hides its alcohol well beneath a smooth, chocolaty veneer that reminds me of a milk stout. It is pretty sweet with brown sugar and dark fruit notes, and I pick up just a hint of roasted bitterness and light whiffs of smoke on the finish.

M-The body is medium in heft with a smooth, almost-fine carbonation. The beer drinks cleanly for the style and ABV with no trace of syrup or stickiness.

O-This is a nice beer, but not one that I will go out of my way to find again. It lacks some of the bitter, roasted grain punch and complexity that the best examples of this style have.

 

Strong coffee scent with balanced coffee and chocolate flavors. Very well done.