Black Belle Imperial Stout with Coconut
Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery

 

 

12oz bottle poured in to willi beecher glass

The generic packaging really makes this an unassuming beer. It pours black with a chocolate colored head. Nose gives way to a big burst of coconut. That coconut is repeated in the flavor. It’s almost like bourbon brownie batter swirled with coconut icing. Taste is on point! This stuff is THICK! Perfectly full body and very slick on the tongue. This one caught me off guard. I will be looking to grab some of this when I visit Nashville in June.

 

 

This one is big on coconut, but it does it extremely well. Pours jet black and reasonably thick, with a little khaki head and minimal carbonation. Smell absolutely jumps out of the glass. There's certainly plenty of milk chocolate, dark chocolate, espresso, graham cracker, vanilla, caramel, and earthy, roasty malt. But the sweet coconut blows everything else away. I've had plenty of coconut-infused beers that come off as heavy-handed or artificial, but despite the robustness of the coconut presence (smell and taste), it's extremely harmonious with the other strong notes and doesn't feel artificial at all. Taste is again dominated by the very sweet and luscious coconut, but it's sitting on an excellent base Imperial Stout that hits all the right notes with dark chocolate, roasted coffee beans, toffee, tobacco, dark fruits, and caramelized wood. Feel is medium-thick, very velvety and a little sticky, with minimal carbonation.

This is a decadent dessert beer, for sure, so I can't see myself drinking more than a few ounces of this at a sitting. But those few ounces make for some delicious slow sipping. This would be a great beer to share with a few drinking buddies around a fire.