Coconut Monolith (Horchata)
Rock House Brewing

Everyone has to have a signature imperial stout, and everyone must have a series of variant flavors to give the beer intrigue, variety and uniqueness. And Rock House Brewing rolls out a series of pastry, spice and pantry flavors piled high on one monolith of an imperial stout.

Coconut Monolith, the Horchata version, spices up the roast with a nose of citrus, cream and allspice along with underlying candy bar aromas of chocolate and coconut. Very dark brown, but a hair's shade off of black, the lightly carbonated stout sits still in the glass; preceding a taste of toffee, coconut, caramel, sweet cream and vanilla to push those Mounds candies onto the early palate.

As the dark and roasty ale simmers on the middle palate, its roasted taste develops a Columbian coffee character with candied walnut, bittersweet chocolate and toasted marshmallow. That's all before the uniqueness of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice link up with generous vanilla spice for that quintessential Horchata flavor. Spicy, sweet and rounded, the late palate comes with a broad and woodsy bitterness that hangs on to the cinnamon and light pepper spice to nearly pin-point perfection.

Full bodied and somewhat lumbered in texture, the beer's lacking carbonation has a weighted feel that falls slightly flat, making the malts linger longer with sweetness, grain and spice for a long workmanlike session. Still, the combination of horchata spices act in harmony with the stout stewing just above a firm kahlua-like spice.