Dulce De Leche Stout
Untitled Art

08/08/20 can @ home

16 oz can dated 11/20/19 poured into North Coast tulip.

Pours a light brown from the can and forms a dark brown in the tulip. Has a nice fuzzy beige head of 1 finger that stays a little while and leaves a little residue on the glass walls.

Aroma is exquisite. Very soft notes of vanilla pudding and caramel sauce, with hints of cinnamon, flan, coffee, and butterscotch.

Flavor is more or less a forest fire. Lots of char, lots of grass, lots of pine. Some familiar caramel-vanilla sweetness peeks in from underneath and gives your palate a break from the fiery chaos, but the resinous pine oils still remain. The oddity here is that I keep wanting to drink it.

Feel is resinous, carbonated, semi-creamy, semi-slick, with moderate to high amounts of alcohol heat (especially on the finish). Roast and hop oils linger on the palate.

Overall, I wouldn't buy a second can. This was a rough one and while I've managed to get through 1/3 of the can, the other 2/3rds seems like a hike uphill. I'll probably opt to dump this one out.

Price paid : $4.99 / can
Would buy again : definitely not

When coffee becomes beer, beer becomes coffee. As the yearning for one develops such convincing character, the line that separates them gets blurred. Untitled Art is one such brewery than masterfully takes the coffeehouse character as far as they can without loosing that "Stout" flavor anchor.

Dark Brown and laced with a fine silt haze, the dark and frothy Dulce de Leche greets the nose with the robust roast character of imperial stout but then the soothing softness of cappuccino. As its malty taste delivers early sweetness to the tongue, bold impressions of chocolate, nougat, marshmallow and sweet cream start to come to mind.

As the Stout rolls onto the middle palate, the roasted character begins to overwhelm the softer, creamier tastes and impresses the tastebuds with turkish blend coffee, burnt toast, roasted walnut and bittersweet chocolate. While the cream, vanilla and marshmallow nuances lurk in the recesses of taste, they provide a necessary balance to soften the aggressive bitterness of roast and grain just as the late palate trends cocoa-like and slightly soilish in nature.

Full bodied but still holding a high sense of drinkability, the Imperial Stout finishes bitter creamy and with the spiciness of roast-derived astringency. Lingering with subtle hints of campfire and char, the beer couldn't survive palate fatigue if not for the somber balance of vanilla and cream that saves the day in the end.

 

A- Tallboy pours into an 8oz becher with a deep mahogany brown body and a light tan head. A foamy and creamy texture to the crown which stops rising at about one finger high. Good head retention and huge webs of lacing.

S- Sweet, tons of malts and some influence from the yeast in the form of bready and estery notes. All together I am getting a walnut, cocoa, caramel and banana bread type of dessert feeling from the aroma and the banana esters are the surprise here but 'tis what yeast does sometimes. Toasted nuts and dark fruits lead off with the sweets, toasted and roasted barley and earthy hops following that up. Hints of dark roast coffee, toffee and raisin.

T- Considerably more going on here than I would expect from the name of the beer as it doesn't just settle at that sweet dessert stout flavor profile and has depth and complexity to the malts and yeast profile. The beer is quite bitter overall but opening up before that are notes of caramel, toasted/charred nuts, baking cocoa, espresso, toffee, walnuts, raisin, fig and brown sugar. For me this reads more like a Brown Ale than a stout. Earthy and pine hop notes in the finish with some heft to 'em. A hint of acrid charred bitterness and some booze in the finish. Just a lot happening.

MF- Medium bodied and has plenty of that soft, silky lactose creaminess on the taste buds; very smooth. Carbonation is on the high side and it ends with quite the gripping bitterness.

On my palate the heavy bitterness feels a bit out of place and the beer comes off as a very bitter, nutty Brown Ale with hints of the caramel and roast the name and style would suggest. Needs some simplifying or more focus on one of the strong flavors here.

 

 

Dark brown body with a big light brown head. Smell had the classic dulce de leche aromas along with dark cocoa and malt. However, the taste did not come together, with roasted malt, barley, and ash tray leading, before the vanilla and dulce de leche caramel flavors kicked in, but not potently either. Feel is roasted, chewy, and dry. Missed the mark here

 

 

Full disclosure - I sure did love dulce de leche as a kid, and this form - it ain't bad at all...

Pouring this out of the can into the pint I found it to look very thick, very creamy and though it only poured a thin head, it had the most lightest of lacings I have seen, quite possibly, ever. The smell at first was an assault of sweetness and after a few seconds the light booziness appeared and the distinct maltiness of a stout made itself know. Mouthfeel was as cream and thick as it pour with some light carbonation and the taste was a well blended mixture of sweet caramel, malts, and roasted coffee (but not strong nor overpowering.) This was something I had hoped it would be special, and in my book, it is.

Poured into a snifter. A clear cola brown color on the pour, producing a dank brown color in the glass with a thick tan head that lingered. The aroma was bright for a milk stout with sweet lactose, vanilla, chocolate, and earthy notes. The hop presence on the palate was surprisingly strong. Not bad, but floral notes that distracted from the roasted grain and milky flavors. Feel was a tad thin but silky. Enjoyable but a bit too hoppy for the style IMO.

 

 

16oz can, date stamped 11/20/19. Dark brown bodied ale with a foamy tan head. Sweet aroma of caramel, grain, chocolate, lactose, and vanilla. Sweet flavors as expected with loads of caramel & lactose along with cocoa, mild roasted barley, toast, brown cane sugar, vanilla, and earthy hops that round out the flavors. Full body, sweet but not cloyingly, ample carbonation, modest peppery and earthy bitterness. This was good - I appreciate its uniqueness.

Aroma is coffee, chocolate and earthy dark malts. The flavor is coffee, chocolate, mild milk/lactose, dark malts and an acidic/slightly earthy finish.