Black is Beautiful
Skeleton Key Brewery

Pours pitch black, pretty thick and oily. Really not much of a head ever forms on the beer - just a thin partial layer of foam that appears and then quickly disappears. Aroma has notes of roasted malts, a bit of coffee like notes, and a light sweet banana like note. Its really sweet on the nose.

Taste is sweet, but not as much as I expected from the nose. There are roasted, almost charred malts, lots of chocolate and cocoa, light notes of banana and coconut. The coconut is really mild and tastes akin to the toasted coconut you'd use for baking - mercifully its not that artificial suntan lotion coconut you sometimes get from these beers. The roast, charred malts really help balance the sweetness. As it warms that banana flavor starts to come through a bit more giving it this really nice chocolate banana split flavor. It really works and frankly the biggest virtue here is that it accomplishes all of that without becoming diabetes inducing levels of sweet. There is even a moderate hint of the bittering hops on the back end that are allowed to still peep through. Feel is really prickly with vibrant, bright carbonation. Oily and thick. Still, its pretty drinkable for a 10% stout.

Overall I am really impressed with tis one. I was not a big fan of the other Black is Beautiful collaboration between these breweries, but this one is really well executed. A pleasure to drink and its an added bonus that its for a good cause.