Coffee and Donuts
Tox Brewing Company

16oz can. Poured out an opaque, oil black color with a small, light brown head of foam. It left sudsy sheets of lace. It smelled of raspberry, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. Very sweet berry taste with rich chocolate, coffee and some vanilla.

This is an impressive beer. It's an imperial stout that's brewed with coffee, donuts, strawberry, raspberry, and vanilla. The beer pours a deep brown with a lighter brown head. The aroma is a chemically sweetened raspberry filled donut. The taste is basically eating a raspberry filled donut. I don't taste strawberry or vanilla, and I doubt I'm getting much coffee flavor itself. This is a tasty dessert beer and at 10% is best enjoyed when you can stay out for awhile.

 

2023-08-06
16oz can served in a curvy Fremont glass. Can is dated 04/21/23. @Roguer sent it to me in NBS BIF #17.

Pours very dark brown, black for all practical purposes, with a dark tan head that is fairly small and short-lived. Smell is sugary, strawberries, and coffee.

Taste is also dominated by strawberry and sweetness, but the coffee roast comes out a bit stronger and kind of saves the day for me. Booziness comes through a little bit.

Mouthfeel is thick, chewy, but not sticky. Overall, it's a pretty good beer, but you better be prepared for sweet and strawberry.

Sent to me by @Roguer in an LIF associated with NBW BIF #17
Poured a very nice stout black with a medium brown head that reached over an inch but left little lacing.
Aroma lost on my Covid affected nose.
The taste, I got loads of the doughnut filling but not much of the doughnut itself, especially the raspberry. Strawberry and vanilla showed up as additional, but secondary flavors. The coffee may have been a bit overwhelmed, or it was melded into the base stout flavor I was getting which had typical notes of coffee and chocolate. The bready part of the doughnut I tried but failed to taste. Still, it may not have been exactly "Coffee and donuts" for me, but it was a quite good fruit forward stout.
The feel was somewhat thinner than I expected, one would think with donuts involved you would have something pretty chewy. But shows what I get for expecting something I guess.
Tasty beer, try it, especially if you like raspberry!

Unimpressive head production or retention. Body is a beautiful rich ebony color.

Raspberry and strawberry are fairly prominent on the nose, the sharp sweetness cutting through the big malt base - but not overpoweringly so. Additional notes of cream, coffee, white dough, vanilla, molasses, chocolate.

Thin on the palate for the style and ABV; they literally added donuts to a breakfast stout that clocks in double digit ABV, so I don't think expecting a thicker, creamier body is off the mark. Fairly lively. Right in the middle of medium and full bodied. Moderate bitterness; I wouldn't call it a particularly bitter stout, but it's not overly sweet, either. Long finish, with berry notes lingering for quite a while after the swallow.

Tasting notes include strawberry, raspberry, and white dough; vanilla (in particular up front, but it can't hold up for the long term); coffee (more prominent by about the mid-sip, and fading in and out for the rest of the sip); molasses, toffee, and caramel from the malt base, playing very much second (or third) fiddle here.

This is an interesting case where the imperial stout base acts as a canvas for the additives: it doesn't bring a whole lot of its own flavor to the blend, although it does lend a good deal of richness to ground the otherwise sweet and tart berry flavors and keep them reigned in. Berry-flavored doughnuts are certainly the highlight, so if you're expecting a slightly berry-accented imperial coffee stout, or a decadent pastry stout, you'll be in for disappointment. It's less balanced than other stellar examples of imperial berry stouts, as well, such as Lizard of Koz - but it's not unbalanced. I would welcome more richness and sweetness from the malt base, which could put this one in a higher tier, but as it is, it's a very enjoyable berry-forward beer.