Vanil Kofe
Narrow Gauge Brewing Company

Black in color with no light penetration. There’s a fingernail of brown around the rim and covering three quarters of the top. The aroma is of vanilla, coffee, and dark malt. I’m tasting pads of vanilla, some dark roasted coffee, and dark malt. I’d swear there’s cinnamon here. The mouth is thick, chewy, and viscous.

Clearly the brewers at Narrow Gauge have different preferences than I do when it comes to stouts. This beer has good coffee, vanilla, and chocolate. But it doesn’t come together in a way that I particularly enjoy. Not that it’s bad. But over and again their beers taste syrupy and flat on my palette.

 

16oz can date 08/09/21; poured into Narrow Gauge Flute.

Appearance: Dark and oily black bodied stout with dense and creamy khaki colored head. Not much head sticking to the glass. Head drops down to ring around the side of the glass.

Smell: Lots of vanilla and really decent coffee nose.

Taste: sweet vanil. Dry chocolates. Brown sugar and oatmeal. Big roasty Kofe that is bold and bitter; almost to the burnt flavor profile of coffee. Good balance of flavors. Booze tastes slightly astringent and appears only for a short second in the finish. Gets sweeter as it warms up and you start getting hint of maple as this warms up.

Mouthfeel: medium full bodied stout. low and adequate carbonation. Creamy and silky textured stout, but it still has a slightly thin body.

Overall: Really excellent coffee stout from Narrow Gauge.

Look - nice black thick with a tan head and lacing
Smell - nice roasty malts with a vanilla coffee
Taste - grainy slight caramel malt along with vanilla and coffee
Feel - Medium body and syrup
Overall - really nice blend

Pours a deep black color with little to no head on top. The smell has a very nice coffee aroma to it. The taste is sweet, yet roasty and a bit chocolatey too. The feel of the beer is slick and oily, definitely a full bodied sipper for sure. Overall pleasantly surprised with this beer and worthy of checking out if you're in the St. Louis area!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On draft at Narrow Gauge. It reminds me a ton of Mikerphone's Imperial Smells like Bean Spirit. It has that similar Tugboat coffee aroma and flavour. The vanilla is not at pastry-levels but it has a pretty nice marshmallow-like sweetness, milk chocolate with a fair bit of roast to it. Nice semi-pastry balance, good mouthfeel, great coffee presence to back it all up.