Iced Mocha - Caramel
Hubbard's Cave Brewery

Look: Poured in to a pint glass. Looked like strong black coffee with a thin light brown head that quickly disappeared to a puny thin ring around the edge. Lacing is very slow to work its way down the sides.
Smell and Taste: Reminiscent of a hot fudge sundae with a hint of caramel. Has the same lingering semi-bitter aftertaste as a sundae. Where's the whipped cream?
Feel: Even thought it lacks head retention, you can still feel the carbonation on the tongue. I would feel better if it had a higher ABV. LOL
Overall: If you are into heady brews, this one is not it. For the price I paid, it could use a higher gravity. Too many other stouts out there to try to buy this one again. But if someone else is picking up the tab . . . why not enjoy another.

Pours opaque dark brown in color with one quarter inch head. Taste is baker's chocolate, dark roast coffee and plenty of caramel. Medium heavy body, sweet, roasty with moderate carbonation. Amazing beer. Not as sweet as their imperial stouts but I love how they get all of the flavor with a lower abv. I love how the caramel rolls and coats my mouth and I still get plenty of beer taste. Extremely well done.

Served from the can in a Mickey Finn's shaker pint glass.

I love how I get these sorts of drinks in beer form years before I ever try the real thing. Anyway, this stuff pours a deep midnight brown topped by a finger or so of light tan foam. The nose comprises mild roasted malts, light coffee, and some rich, buttery caramel. If you've ever been to a bakery or fair where they were cooking up some brittle, that's the caramel smell here. Luscious. The taste leads off with the roast and coffee, but then it's joined by the caramel: Here, the caramel isn't so much sweet and buttery but rather burnt. There's still some of that saltiness in there, but it's coached in a wealth of toast. The body is a light medium, with a light moderate carbonation and a somewhat thin feel. Overall, a decent stout that comes awfully close to nailing its target flavors, but the taste doesn't quite make it, and the the overly thin body (relatively speaking) doesn't alleviate matters any.

Modest head production, but retention is quite good. Body is a dark, nutty brown, not quite black.

Nose is incredibly rich, especially for the ABV. It smells less like a caramel iced mocha coffee, and more like a caramel-drizzled dessert. Very sweet. Caramel, chocolate, vanilla, honeycomb, toffee, cookie dough. The coffee is present, but you almost need to look for it, based on the strength of the caramel and chocolate (how sharp the coffee presents to your particular nose may vary).

For all the richness of the nose, it's much thinner - and less sweet - on the palate, with the coffee presenting much stronger. That's far more appropriate given the style and ABV, and it certainly comes across more like the namesake iced coffee drink, but it's a stark contrast; the nose sets up an expectation for one profile, and the flavor delivers a very different experience. Very nutty back third, accented by the chocolate and bitter coffee.

Another contrast between the nose and palate is the relative strength of the caramel. There is a kiss of it up front, and it reaches a modest peak mid-sip, but it never reaches the strength intimated by the nose. It's much toastier on the palate, as well, contributing to the bitterness; it's actually a quite bitter brew, albeit driven by the roasted malts and additives, vice any perceptible hop profile. The lactose does not appear to contribute significantly to the flavor profile or mouthfeel.

This is, overall, a very tasty brew, and despite a review that reads fairly critically, I'm really enjoying it. The lighter mouthfeel and overall low sweetness makes it fairly crushable, if one prefers.