Mountains
Track Brewing Co.

NOVEMBER 2024. 44 cl can (€12 from the beershop shelf).
Collaboration between the Swedish brewery Stigbergets (from Gothenburg) and the Track brewery from Manchester, England.
It is a 13% Imperial Coffee Stout with added cocoa and coconut (real ingredients, not syrups).
As soon as it is poured it releases toasted and roasted aromas, slightly reminiscent of (toasted) vanilla.
It is impenetrable black (no dark brown reflections, just black) with a fairly abundant beige (cappuccino) foam (more than I expected).
In the mouth, a liquid as dense as egg yolk on which the sweet flavors of the adjuncts flow and intersect (in this case: cocoa and coconut), without ever falling into the cloying.
The underlying taste is the soft, sweet and above all enveloping one of chocolate that is characterized by toasted (coconut) and roasted (coffee) notes and quickly reaches the palate that slightly bitter note of dark chocolate that is felt on the tongue and is quickly dampened on the palate by the sweet density of the rest of the beer.
The underlying sweetness is elementary but, especially for beers with this structure, it could have easily stumbled upon a product "TOO" sweet and caloric, instead - at least in my opinion - an admirable balance has been maintained, bringing out all the flavors described on the label without the product being cloying or even worse "artificial"
In this beer only raw materials were used, not syrups or various extracts, and certainly this contributes to not making a product that already has such a dense body even heavier.
The alcohol content is evident but the extreme enveloping (both olfactory and gustatory) does not allow the emergence of any alcoholic/ethyl note, leaving itself perceived only as a warm sensation every time you gulp the beer.
Complex but balanced, warm and sweet but not cloying.