Hollow Place - Vanilla
The Veil Brewing Co. - Production Brewery

On tap at Tap and Mallet in Rochester, NY.

This one pours a super thick dark black color, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This smells absurdly vanilla forward, almost gummy, even a slight bit artificial, with vanilla extract, cake frosting, marshmallow candy, and chocolate fudge.

This is tasty in an abstract sense, as it's just too ridiculous to actually be taken seriously. There's just the motherload of vanilla here. The vanilla is simulataneously authentic up front, with silky and candied pastry decadence, and then artificial, gummy, and just too thick on the back end. The base stout is just kind of chocolate syrup thick and sweet, and doesn't add much to the beer. I want to like this more than I actually do.

This is super thick, creamy, and chewy, and slightly underattenuated, with very little carbonation. It's absolutely massive.

In about 1-2 oz, this works really well. Once you get any further than that, it becomes a taxing chore.

 

The beer pours a nice foamy brown head that dissipates quickly while the beer itself is a nice dark chocolate brown. The texture is nothing interesting and looks like any other stout.

The smell is a bit sweet but good. The bittersweet vanilla is fairly strong and a tad overpowering of Thor her notes but becomes less of a problem as it warms. The chocolate is light but comes out nice around the edges.

The taste is good. It has a bittersweet vanilla note upfront that dominates the other notes. The chocolate still comes out in the finish.

The feel is good. It has a heavy body and a creamy feel with almost no carbonation.

Overall, good but the vanilla is a bit too strong for my tastes.