Cannoli Stout
Front Porch Brewing

I'm not a foodie except that I will eat just about anything anyone prepares - I love variety. I have a sweet tooth too. So this Cannoli Sout came with nothing but an open mind and tongue.

It pours solid black and with a smallish light brown head. I'm not sure what cannolis smell like - I've had some, but only on rare occasion, but this thing smells good (much better than other adjuncts like marshmallow) - very appetizing. The taste is a sweet confection of stout goodness. It's creamy underneath a pile of yummy sweetness. The alcohol is very deceitfully hidden under all that flavor, but it is there.

Highly recommended. This big stout is just what I was looking for this afternoon - a huge beverage.

16oz can purchased at Mid Columbia Wine & Spirits, in Kennewick, WA, for $6.45. "Brewed and packaged by Twelve Percent, North Haven, CT, for front porch brewing." So, it's apparently contract brewed.

Poured into a stemless wine glass, this was a brown so dark as to be virtually black, with a tight, mocha-colored head that dropped relatively quickly, leaving spotty lace on the sides of the glass, but never entirely died away.

Initially, this smelled like an imperial stout brewed with sugar and lacto. Just sweet and milky aroma. However, once sitting in the glass, it warmed up relatively quickly to where it took on a more nuanced aroma that really was a bit like sweetened ricotta cheese in a cannoli.

Once it warmed up properly, the taste was much like the aroma, except the cinnamon came out to play enough to give it an almost crust like flavor that hinted at a cannoli shell. It most resembles a cannoli in the aftertaste. I have to say, all the listed adjuncts (cannolis[!], cacao nibs, cinnamon & vanilla) seem very well balanced, with no one element jumping out too far at the expense of another. A lot of Brewers working with vanilla and/or cinnamon apply those two adjuncts with a heavy hand. Although a beer like this practically requires a heavy hand, it's not TOO heavy a hand.

Creamy, dessert-like mouth feel.

Drinking this, I kept thinking of Clemenza saying, "Leave the gun, take the cannolis." Fun fact: the guy that played Clemenza was the highest paid actor in the cast of Godfather, Pt I. I was skeptical that this would be anything other than a basic sugary pastry Stout, and might not even be that good. Happily, I was wrong. It's not a dead ringer for a cannoli, but hinted enough at one to seem like a job well done. I am genuinely curious if they were literally standing in a brewery and throwing whole cannolis into a tank. Anyway, a pastry Stout like this isn't my cup of tea everyday, but when in the mood for a dessert beer, I would definitely be interested in drinking this one again.

 

 

Very attractive beer, with decent head production, very good retention, and OK lacing, and a very dark cola-colored body bordering on ebony.

Nose is fantastic, with strong notes of chocolate to go with cinnamon, dark fruit, coffee, molasses, and cola.

Thick and full bodied on the palate, while retaining lively bite. Stickier than it is chewy. Not the thickest of pastry stouts, but wholly appropriate for the style. Alcohol doesn't stand out unpleasantly, but it's still clearly a big beer.

Thankfully, this beer isn't overly sweet on the palate. The cinnamon adds slight heat and some dry spice without overpowering. The rest of the tasting notes are a touch muddled, however. There's dark fruit and even some fruity esters (apple, pear) from the yeast and malt base, and as mentioned, the cinnamon is present - but the cacao and vanilla aren't particularly prominent, although they are present if you go looking for them, especially on the back half of the sip. Prune and cola continue to be stars of the show, not necessarily in a bad way.

This is very tasty stout, but it doesn't bring to mind the eponymous dessert. For a pastry stout meant simply to be delicious, it delivers, but if it's really trying to evoke the cream-and-chocolate filled pastry for which it's named (and with which it is apparently even brewed), I'm not sure if it exactly hits the mark.