Baba Yaga - Salted Chocolate
Ethereal Brewing

 

 

 

The annual frenzy that the brewers at Ethereal create lands every beer geek in central Kentucky falling at the doorstep drooling, twitching and losing their water in full anticipation of the variants of their Baba Yaga imperial stout. And with the additions of caramel and salt, we can add chocoholics to the zombie-like pilgrimage.

Salted Chocolate Baba Yaga pours with the same oily viscosity of the original stout with a pitch black appearance. Rich with chocolate and coconut, the aromas are mouthwatering for anyone who remembers childhood chocolate milk while yearning for a boozy scent that delivers the same in taste. Roasted malt, coconut candies and milk chocolate wash the front of the tongue with the full on taste of bittersweet chocolate.

Highly savory and sweet, the ale latches hold of each and every tastebud as the decadent stout splashes the middle palate. Bittersweet chocolates once again bring the flavors of espresso, walnut, heavy cream and burnt marshmallow together. A late palate of bourbon spice, vanilla, caramel, toasted oak and coconut foreshadow the additions of chocolate and whisky. Lightly salty, the briny effects of the spice provides a roundness that brightens the coconut, chocolate and coffee flavors that present earlier and then balances only by the broad, woodsy and coffee-like bitterness from hops.

Aburdly full, creamy and dessert-like, the beer's velvety and silky textures are highly satisfying for the sweet tooth and presents only a light cloying action that suggests that the ale is better suited for a slow and sipping occasion rather than a quick or refreshing course. Boozy spice simmers in the tongue with flavors of chocolate liquor coming in a long, savory aftertaste that endures easily into the next sip.