Macaroon Delight
Blue Point Brewing Company

 

 

Blue Point Brewing Co. "Macaroon Delight"
16 fl. oz. can with a "BEST BY DATE" of "BB05NOV22 BP1414". Sampled on 27JAN22.
$4.99 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: So what do we have here? It's an Imperial pastry stout with brown sugar and toasted coconut at 10.5% alc./vol.. Sounds good to me. Wow, it's dark. I can tell just by what's pouring from the can. Yeah, the head is a very dark tan, I'll even call it brown. The body is an opaque black and doesn't reveal and highlights even when held to the light. I'm not getting much from the aroma. There's some dark chocolate, a very soft roastiness, a waft of alcohol, a hint of fruitiness, and a flicker of brown sugar. There's certainly no coconut to it. Onward, the flavor is much fuller and there is a coconut component to it but it's not strong and I mainly get it in the finish. I guess it's just not strong enough to compete with the sugary, chocolatey, and roasty components. The fruitiness remains, kind of like apple, and the alcohol is still there as well but it's not distracting. In fact, I think if it wasn't there it might come across as too sweet. Mainly what we've got here are notes of sugar, fudge brownies, dark bittersweet chocolate, and an ashen roastiness. It's decent enough as a strong and sweet stout but I don't think there's really anything special about it. I also have to question the color because there's not enough roastiness there for the color to have come from straightforward roasted barley. They must have used a fair amount of debittered black. As a dessert beer it works but it doesn't really impress me, and that's odd because it's fairly sweet. There's some bitterness to it but it doesn't seem like a lot. I'm guessing the alcohol is helping to dry it. Surprisingly, although it lingers, the sweetness fades rather quickly. The coconut in the aftertaste is pleasant. I'm not really sure what else to say about it in terms of flavor. In the mouth it's full bodied, and once it warms in the mouth it's quite creamy. I'm guessing there's some lactose in here. The head held up well but eventually dropped to a standard ring-collar with a little island in the middle. The lacing is pretty good with some solid walls of lace in some areas and thin but wide rings in others. I think I've already conveyed my thoughts on this but I'll finish up by saying that although the beer is decent, and stands up on it's own fairly well, it's a little bit of a disappointment as the other beers in the Imperial series have been better. And I know that toasted coconut is very expensive, believe me I've brewed with it professionally, but there's just not enough of it there to call it "macaroon delight". They've used flavorings in some of the other beers so I'm not sure why they didn't use it here.
Review #7,743

This brewery's French Toasted is amongst the best desert beers, ever. Can this match that level? Only by beginning the process by emptying a pint can into a clear glass liter mug to start things will the answer be learned. There's plenty of tan foam on top of a brown liquid, so brown that it approaches straight up black coffee. The head recedes unevenly, but with much sticking to the inside of the glass. For a desert brew, the coconut aspect is subdued to the nose, which may not be a bad thing. There's also a hint of roasted malt to smell here. Now, onto the major categories. The mouthfeel is very good, if not excellent for a stout carrying this much ABV. The natural inclusion of dark chocolate reminders, common among good stouts, is present, also in subtle fashion. Even the coconut inclusion is so tastefully done, this almost drinks like an unflavored Imperial Stout. This really is amazingly good and should you detest the coconut flavor, you probably will still like this. It's probably more of a true Imperial Stout than a desert beer. Regardless of category, this is one good brew.