Breakfast Stout
Outcast Brewing

 

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store. Outcast's first non-hop-forward brew. Ah, variety is ze spice of life, non?

This beer pours a solid black hole, with the barest of orange cola basal edges, and a fistful of puffy, rocky, and chunky light brown head, which leaves a bit of dissipating cloud form lace around the glass as it lazily subsides.

It smells of Coffee Crisp chocolate bars, those dry maple candies you get at Canadian tourist traps, gritty and grainy caramel malt, a touch of roasted toffee, subtle black licorice spice, and very, very tame earthy, weedy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, artisanal hipster coffee, bittersweet and rich Belgian cocoa, an ephemeral maple syrup sweetness (I'm reminded of grilled cheese sandwiches right now, because that's a flavour combination that is apparently desirable to my 4 year old), black Nibs, and more understated earthy, musty, and gently perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is definitely more ramped-up than the norm, via its palate-prodding frothiness, the body a sturdy medium-heavy weight, and mostly smooth, with a small airy creaminess emerging once things warm up a tad out of the ol' basement frigo. It finishes off-dry, the woody maple, chocolate, caramel, and fresh coffee characters still mixing and mingling like old pals.

Overall, this is one stellar edition of this not exactly BA-defined style - coffee (if you drink that shit at breakfast, that is) stout. More of a mocha dealio, I would imagine, but all I really care about is the beer side of things, and man, this just freaking works. Robust flavours abound, with an undercover hop profile (55 IBUs, really?) keeping things from going off of the saccharine rails. Great stuff, once again, Patrick!