Black Clouds - Double Vanilla Bourbon Barrel-Aged
Dancing Gnome

A superbly decadent, yet not overdone BA Imperial Stout. Pours a viscous ebony with a mahogany head. Rich raisny aroma with the vanilla upfront but not overpowering the flavor. This is sumptuous but not sickening sweet. Well done Dancing Gnome!

 

 

 

Tonight is a new to me beer

Dancing Gnome – Barrel-Aged Dark Clouds Double Vanilla

11% ABV

The beer is listed as “Stout – American Imperial” on BA.

The beer was removed from a 45ish degree temp fridge after having been refrigerated for approximately… 5.5 months. Beer poured into a Side Project stemmed Durobor.

OK, so I came across this beer on black Friday 2021. The store I was at would not sell till 8 or 9am, despite opening 1-2 hours before that. Boy was I pissed, because they didn’t advertise that. Well, their attitude was also “we’re going to offer you a bunch of beers that we saved back just for this day!” I was pissed, but looked anyway and saw this one. It was $16.99, and rated >4.6 on untappd. So, I figured, I guess I’ll take a risk. I’ve been waiting to open it, partially because of that high mark. I just couldn’t imagine it would live up to the hype (I built up in my mind based on the rating). Let’s see if it does.

First Impression: Pours dark and thick (looking), especially for an 11% vanilla stout. Pretty head. Starting off right. 4.5

Appearance: Typical stout darkness. Nice pretty khaki head that mostly dissipates (quickly) with a slight ring around the edge. 4.35

Smell: This is where it starts taking a turn for the worst. Artificial vanilla upfront with tubbed-vanilla ice cream on the back end. Slight alcohol laces peaking their head. 3.95

Taste: This is worse than the taste, even if the score doesn’t reflect it in an obvious way. Big heavy dark chocolate (they call it brownie on the label, but it’s more just cacao. What follows is a lot of the tubbed-vanilla frosting described from the nose. Perhaps it is entirely real, not synthetic or the result of vanilla extract, but it comes off exceedingly ‘artificial. Not a lot of depth. 3.85

Mouthfeel: For an 11% stout, it’s pretty thick. Every bit as thick as Bourbon County (a good marker for how thick a beer is as an OG BA stout on the ‘chewy’ end of the spectrum for stouts that are NOT thicccc). It’s ‘fine’, but feels heavy for the intensity of the flavor. 4.0

Overall: I don’t hate this beer, but I certainly regret buying it. I almost sent it to a good trade partner, but thought better of it. Now I’m glad I didn’t – Would have felt like a fool/asshat. But really, what a fucking disappointment. It feels like a beer trying to be a pastry stout that, arguably, probably achieves what it is going for, but what ultimately comes off as artificial to me. Feels like another beer just being hyped by locals. It’s baffling how this beer ever reached a >4.6 average rating on untappd, or even a 4.4+ on BA. 3.85

BA Review Score: 3.92

New brewery alert for me with an amazing stout from Dancing Gnome. The beer is BA Black Clouds and it brings a full assault of vanilla. Vanilla stouts rank way up on my personal list of flavors so I was very pleased with this offering. There is a luscious amount of vanilla bean paste and you know right away that this is an elite brew. It is smooth throughout and has no burn. I will be looking for some more beers from these guys for sure.

 

Incredible beer. It poured thick pitch black with a nice head. Smelled of sweet chocolate cake with vanilla. Taste was exactly as follows. It was silky, smooth, and amazing

Silky smooth mouth feel.