Speedway Stout - Horchata
AleSmith Brewing Company

16oz can poured into a snifter

A- pours jet black in color with a one finger khaki colored head that reduces to a ring

S- aroma is a bit muted at first, opens with sweet milk sugars that enhances the vanilla note a bit. As it warms, notes of roast, chocolate, caramel & a slight hint of cinnamon. Having a hard time distinguishing coffee, which is strange

T- sweet chocolaty malt up front is immediately followed by a milk sugar sweetness and some vanilla bean. Mid-palate gives a caramel note with more milk sugars. The finish gives just a hint of coffee as it warms, cinnamon is hard to pick out

M- medium body with low carbonation leads to a foamy mouthfeel that turns slightly velvety into a slick finish

O- coffee and cinnamon were really muted, a rare miss for this variant series

Copenhagen 3/8 2025. 47,3 cl can from Drik Beer web-shop- AleSmith's usual Speedway-brand design with the anvil logo and a lot of checkered flags.

Pours opaque dark brown with a mid-sized beige head. Stable. Settles as thin patch of foam floating about. A Bit worthy. Crawling up the sides of the glass. Moderate lacing.

Aroma is fairly intense wit sweet, malt and somewhat sugary odor mingling with a bit of sweet spice. Roasted dark malts, toffee and caramel, Brown sugar Cinnamon and vanilla. Hint of mint.

Light carbonation Medium thick, oily, soft, a bit viscous, fat, lightly tingling texture.

Flavor is intense with a strong sweetness followed by a more moderate bitterness. Aftertaste is bitter with a noticeable sweet undertone. Lingering. Finish is semi-dry.

Speedway Stout with a touch of Mexican cake.

 

Canned 2024/05/28
Pours a 1 finger dark brown creamy head with good retention, messy lacing, very dark basically black beer

Nose brings dark chocolate, cocoa, roast, a bit of cinnamon graham cracker like, coffee, vanilla, a bit of nougat and marshmallow

Taste brings more chocolate and cinnamon graham cracked up front, mild cinnamon overall, milk chocolate that seems watered down, light roasted coffee, a bit of a metallic note, vanilla spice, baking spices, burnt marshmallow, bitter finish that is a bit sticky and some astringent fusel alcohol character

Mouth is med to fuller bod but somehow feels watered down, milky creamy, med carb, some warming alcohol

Overall not sure what happened here but this is nowhere near the usual Speedway, base beer seems lacking or missing and seems watered down, horchata notes are there but light

ONE PINT can
Served in a snifter

This beer pours black and is topped with a small mocha head that leaves decent lacing.

Coffee forward. I really struggle to find cinnamon and rice milk. It is feint.

Coffee. The cinnamon and rice milk do not show up until I am almost finished with the glass. Slightly bitter coffee finish.

Medium bodied with a smooth mouthfeel

Even though horchata is not my favorite thing, I still struggled find the things that made it a horchata variant.

16 oz can poured into a sniffer.

A: Deep black on the pour. Three fingers of brown head. Superb retention, the head hangs around for the duration. Chunky rings of lacing as the liquid level recedes.

S: Whiffs of vanilla, marshmallow, and cinnamon up front. Some chocolate syrup, and chocolate cake. Ding dong snack cakes. Shuttle whiffs of nutty medium roast coffee begin to pull through with time and warmth. A little bit of dark malt roast, too. Vague green hopsense for a quick second.

T: Lots of chocolate and chocolate cake up front. Quick hit of chocolate syrup, ding dong snack cakes, confectionary vanilla flavors. Chocolate truffles. Roasty and Smokey malt starts to peek through. Roasty and nutty coffee gets wrapped up in this on the mid pallet. It's there, but subtle. Cinnamon, too, is more subtle than the nose let on. That green hop flavor and modest balancing bitterness pulls through on the palate, too. A bit metallic. More cake, smoke, and trailing coffee on the finish.

M: Hefty and thick in the mouth. Rich, full, and silky. More fluffy than weighty. Very well carbonated, but it is gentle in texture. There is some hop tan in that pulls through, too.

O; A solid drink. Coffee and cinnamon are actually a bit muted. It doesn't hit its concept as well as it could, but it's still still a worthy drink. The mouth feel in particular is exquisite. The biggest complaint I have is that the hopping is a bit of a distraction. I can understand the need to balance a lot of sweetness, but the bitterness and the green flavor that it brings doesn't mesh well. Tone it down a notch and you'd be fine. Despite my criticisms, it's still a really good beer. It's just in tough competition amongst its other Speedway peers.

 

 

I was a bit conflicted picking this up the original AleSmith is quite tasty so the addition of rice milk sounds a little bit gross but we're going in. A bit too much head if you ask me a medium pour resulted in more than two fingers of foam but beer itself looks like the base deep dark blackness with a mocha tinted foam. Flavor is pretty similar to the base profile smooth coffee bit of smoke and a nice balance of sweetness to round out any hop bitterness. The horchata element is there but as stated before by others kind of muted you get a bit of rice milk in the flavor not aggressively sweet and then in the finish is a bit of a dry cinnamon aspect not really necessary but enough to be noticed with every sip. To me it makes the experience a bit more bitter and spicy which I do not appreciate. The body is well concealed heavy but at the same time not too cloying.

Overall I think I would have been better off with just the base beer maybe even the coffee variant but this one just really isn't sitting right. Really should be done with more vanilla and sweet balance rather than just an aggressive cinnamon aspect.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque in the glass with a quarter finger milk chocolate head that dissipates to a thin film with nice lacing. Aroma of dark toasted malt, cocoa, coffee, vanilla and mild cinnamon. Flavor is dark toasted malt with light char, bitter coffee, vanilla and light cinnamon; lightly bitter coffee and chocolate finish. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess. It's been a while since I've seen a new variant of Speedway. The base stout is familiar with assertive coffee and good chocolate as a backbone. There is some horchata character in the vanilla and cinnamon, but it seems that this light Mexican drink is a little mild to stand up to the coffee and firm malt base of this stout, and only is a mild afterthought. On the other hand, this stout has a fine, well loved flavor on its own and is quite enjoyable. Interesting minor variant on the theme.

De OkassionalBeer. En copa Teku. Jugando a Sea of Stars. Con almendras naturales. Buena imperial stout donde el protagonismo se lo lleva un agradable y suave toque a canela siempre presente sin cansar nunca. Se bebe con bastante facilidad a pesar del abv.