Plato’s Shadow
Private Press Brewing

This one pours a very dark black color, with a small head, and a little bit of lacing.

This one smells like dark and fudgy chocolate, barrel derived vanilla, oak, coffee, and coconut.

This is absolutely stupendous. It’s deliriously fudgy and chocolatey, with additional notes of campfires and burnt marshmallows, black cherry, cookie dough, vanilla, toasted coconut, caramel, and lots of oakiness.

This is extremely well integrated, and not all that boozy, despite the really high ABV.

I don’t drink this brewery enough, but Brad Clark really, really knows what he’s doing with huge beers like this.

 

Thanks, Chris, Cassidy and Christine.

A really rich nose, less roast than I was expecting with more baker's chocolate, toffee, burnt sugar and layered barrel character. Rich, full-bodied, with dark chocolate, bourbon, mild vanilla, dark honey. Lovely, full, rich, creamy mouthfeel.

Look - black and thick with slight tan head, great rimming and lacing
Smell - barrel and chocolate
Taste -same as the smell but better
Feel - thick medium body
Overall - fantastic stout!

 

 

Poured at fridge temp. Pours jet black with a little bit of brown head. The nose is chocolate, bourbon, roasted malts, vanilla, a bit of molasses, and perhaps a layer of marshmallow.

The taste is fantastic. Bourbon, chocolate, brown sugar, sweet toffee, vanilla, coconut, raspberries, blackberries, marshmallow, figs, walnuts, and a touch of Christmas spice. Interesting.

Mouthfeel is thick and creamy. The aftertaste is sweet toffee. Overall, a great stout.

 

Appearance is viscous used motor oil black with a short tan head settling to a ridged collar.

Marshmallow, marzipan and acrid brown sugar make up the bulk of the medium but viscous body. Its sharp malt interferes with the barrel spice, preventing discernment of any specific or unique components therein.

This wasn't as fantastic as its promising pedigree and methodology seemed to promise.

A: Midnight in upfront appearance with thinly layered grids of ghostly ash. The neckline remains docile in materialization, which is further stressed by extraction. Accordingly, an army-khaki brim that daintily rests, while the legs gain traction upon viscosity & rotation

S: Opens with a bit of barrel character along the charred grains of forested terrain. The typography is set without add-ons, yet bouts a flourless blackout cake near the dark fig & prune launch. Accordingly, a preset of soft molasses to the richly layered chocolate, before oak enamors the divisions that further the dark fruit compound. There is an interwoven complexity that becomes fixated on arboreal, as pine and cedar events poke at raisin vanilla bark. Down the line is an elaborate take on marshmallows, per the accompaniments found in a Goo Goo Cluster. The momentum picks up the bands nutty-caramel institutes, with a steamed return for pruned leather, and makes draws to licorice roots while connoting tawny port. All the more, a smoother inclining ride towards bourbons perseverance for almond adaptations in mounds & marzipan, while calling back to berries before the oven-dried grapes

T: Flavor roots bitterbark from dark chocolate pickups, and a morsel of rusted/premature vanilla at kickoff. From there, a pilot aimed at sweet, withered fruits that is a bit more subtle than aroma. Yet, proceeds by way of prunes, dates, and apricots while wheedling the paste found in a Newton to dip. At the same time, a slight pull-on honey malt while the heated component begins to smooth and contextualize the course curriculum, from the casks involvement. To this extent, a chocolate evolution on honey, with a skillful adaptation to burnt smothering, while sticky caramel is the benign underlayer to molasses backed prune. A new maturity level for vanilla oak, as the build progresses to a warming degree of Valomilk. The blend takes this with warmness and adds incremental depth upon a senior period. In turn, an offering for more rigs to Toffifay, Moravian Wafers, and Swiss Miss Caramel besides the exploration into cognac grape varieties. Thus and thus, an altering thickness on dry complexity, that is sweetly entitled to the developed fruit liquors, while maintaining a thermal stability on tannins

M: A roast-y ensuing touch with burnt implications upon the start, before ironing out the rich body with a calm disposition on sweet cream. The texture is structurally built to a degree of density that accommodates the level of carbonation. Generally speaking, one that stylistically rectifies the thickness behind char, for an evolving fineness, and one that becomes ancestry to the thinly clean, dry finish. On this premise, gradation is apt on heat, in light of the elegance behind the body’s – advanced – pleasurableness

O: The outlook is rooted in roasted malt, with the dregs of espresso taking the lead. Proportionally, a light hop effect that is presently attuned in growth, with an earthy rigidness to preamble wildfires. Nonetheless, the development is clean on the inelasticity from inception, and further expressive to the stout’s essentials with barrel enrichments across toffee, oak & that prune leather

 

b1 4, 374, 4, 4, 4
b2 4, 4, 4, 4, 4