Honey Bear Coffee Stout
Southern Grist Brewing Co.

Dated 10/09/25, into a Troegs pint glass.

Pours a deep, dark mahogany with ample brown foam, more than 16oz in the can too. Aroma is fresh espresso and coffee beans, with a hint of honey and maple. Flavor follows the nose, really coffee forward and a little bitter, with the honey being mostly just a rich flavor and the maple being a subtle sweetness on the end. Maple flavor is good, and there's a little bit of cinnamon on the finish, but not a ton of it. It's really just a lot of honey on top of roasty, thick coffee with a lighter stout underneath. The base stout is semi-sweet, I get a little extra lactose sugar, and there's good red fruits that blend with the coffee. It's a surprisingly light base for the adjuncts to sit on top of, and is pretty drinkable. Feel is good, carbonated enough to help with the extremely low bitterness base beer, and it elevates the coffee flavor, which is the only really bitter element. It's not too thick, about as heavy as drinking an iced latte, and I think the drinkability and low overall sweetness from each individual adjunct is what makes this one good.

Altogether a really tasty coffee stout. I usually won't drink stouts under 9%, especially not ones with no barrel aging, but this one is enjoyable and shockingly easy to drink while still delivering on the promises of all the adjuncts (coffee, honey, cinnamon, lactose, maple syrup) and has a good base stout underneath. Solid stuff and I'm happy I got it.