Black Is Beautiful
Zony Mash Beer Project

16 fl oz pull-tab can with somewhat minimalist label art/design acquired as part of a 4 pack at a grocer in New Orleans, LA for $11.99 USD plus tax (apparently they charge $17 USD plus tax at the brewery and tips are expected on to-go orders).

"Sweet Potato Crumble Imperial Stout." 11.8% ABV.

APPEARANCE: ~2-3cm of head, tan in colour and not particularly robust, creamy, or soft in appearance. ~4 minute head retention is good for a near 12% ABV beer.

Body of course is an opaque black. Not a jet or ink black, but black.

I wouldn't say it's beautiful, but it's generally enticing,

AROMA: Charred malt, burnt sugars, roast, molasses, date, beet sugar. Maybe scintillae of herbal hops? Or no - I'm imagining it. Am I?

Doesn't evoke sweet potato crumble, but it does promise a sweet imperial stout that disguises its ABV well at the expense of sweetness/bitterness balance. The absence of roasted barley doesn't have me excited to try it, and I'm fearing a complicated uneven beer (as opposed to a complex yet balanced one).

Aromatic intensity is moderately high. I don't detect chocolate/chocolate malt, roasted barley, any barrel notes, or any of the other usual imperial stout suspects.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Yeah, this is far from balanced. Opens acidic like acrid black coffee and remains that way. Sledges of burnt sugars and charred malt hammer away at the palate alongside overdone almost cloying molasses-redolent sweetness, carafa, caramel, and off-putting beet sugar/sweet potato sweetness - the latter bringing unwelcome umami to the beer and bringing its problematic sweetness and its intrusive savoriness into a collision course.

Does it taste like sweet potato crumble? No, no it does not. But I'm not sure even if it did that it would be any good...

It's just so rough around the edges and it happens to be a beer in one of the styles that demands the utmost complexity and balance in order to really stand out. I'll admit its ABV is well concealed, but its messy flavour profile coupled with its lumpy chewy thick mouthfeel makes it a bit of a chore to drink. Coarse, uneven, alternately wet and dry in various points in its structure. Well carbonated to its credit. Thick, a bit syrupy, heavy on the palate, unrefreshing.

OVERALL: $11.99 USD for a 4 pack of this? Hm. A 4-pack of Old Rasputin in the same market is $7.99 USD and that beer's a hell of a lot better. FBS costs less as well. Victory Storm King isn't available in Louisiana, but Louisiana-wise Parish's Reve is the same price and crushes this in terms of quality (though Parish's 4 pack is of 12 fl oz bottles, not 16 fl oz cans).

I'm all for these charity tie-in beers when the beer itself is good...Ales for ALS, the Russian River breast cancer effort, Sierra Nevada's Australian bush fire IPA or whatever it was...but it's a bit of a slap to the face in terms of the cause when the beers supporting it are mediocre across the board, and to date all of the Black Is Beautiful beers I've tried from Louisiana have been hot garbage - and overpriced at that. This beer would be more on-brand were it affiliated with a colon cancer charity - because it's rather shit.

D (2.19) / NOT RECOMMENDED