Shattered Illusions Of Love
River Roost Brewery

 

Awful. No hesd whatsoever even with a vigorous pour. Tastes like syrupy flat soda. Makes me angry, the fact this was expensive is a kick in the pants.

Can courtesy of M-Fox24.

From the can, it pours a dark brown/black color with a small head that soon diminishes to a thin ring. In the nose, it is chocolate and maybe some bourbon. In the mouth, it is smooth, with alcohol soaked raisin flavor with roasted malts.

 

From a 16oz can, batch #SI0L-001, dated 08/05/20. Served in a River Roost-branded... I’m not sure what kind of glass this is. Some sort of chalice? A stubby IPA glass?

Pours in a dark chestnut-brown stream, cola-black in the glass with no discernible highlights. A scant half-finger of fizzy chocolatey head that doesn’t last but a few seconds, leaving a rousable thin, slippery sheet of lacing.

Bourbon is evident in the aroma. Cocoa and caramel.

Taste picks up where the nose leaves off. Sweet and roasty. Booze-soaked raisins, bitter chocolate, chocolate caramel, molasses. Sugary cola and raisinettes.

Feel is smooth verging on syrupy, medium bodied but feeling heftier than that due to fairly low carbonation.

Overall, too heavy, sweet and syrupy for my tastes.

This one pours a smooth looking black color, with a small head, and a little bit of lacing.

This smells like roasted malt, milk chocolate, licorice, nutty chocolate, and coffee.

There's not a ton of barrel to this, it's just maybe a sort of caramel/licorice note being added to the very roasty and chocolatey base. This is very tasty, and it's interesting how no single flavor stands out above the rest - it's all very well-blended and smooth.

This is medium bodied, not super thick or anything, but definitely not thin. It's very drinkable.

I've had better BA stuff from River Roost, but this is still a pleasant beer.

 

Body is full by an oldhead standard, but on the lighter side for new money. Presents a touch sweet and dries substantially on the swallow.

The base is full of dark chocolate with undertones of plum, black licorice, roasted nuts, cola, coffee grounds, and a lowkey buttered phyllo dough note. There's a lot going on here.

The barrel character is mellow but appropriate given the base: a touch of heat at room temp with an oaky, tannic vanillin presence on the finish and the faintest touch of sugar-coated candy. I highly doubt anyone who slams BA pastry stouts or heavily-casked 15 plato 15%ers would enjoy this any more than they would enjoy a 6% brown ale, but that would miss the point. Nothing about this beer is overstated, but the barrel and base produce a complexity often found in only the most bombastic examples of high ABV dark beer. Here, the balance falls close to the mean, but that isn't a bad thing. The base tones aren't intense and the barrel profile isn't intense, but what happens between the two offers plenty if you sip slowly and let it warm up. River Roost kills the BA game, even when that means casking a 10.8% lager. I love Framinghammer and Birth of Tragedy, but this swings with the best of them. I could imagine someone wanting this to be thicker, hotter, etc., but that would betray everything this beer does well.