Chicago Stout Releases (2022)

The one that More released last week is very good - I may pick up more of the More.

 

Sorry, I missed this. It was Elmhurst. They were gone by the time I posted though. They had probably 2 cases of them for a couple of weeks sitting at like $22, then they lowered it to $15 and they all sold out quickly.

 

By the way, I'm drinking a Cruz Blanca Carmelita Suave tonight (Barbados rum barrel aged stout with coffee and dulce de leche). Pretty good, but holy **** there is a LOT of rum barrel in this one. Everything else is just aftertaste.

 

Ah no worries! I probably wouldn’t have ventured out there, but took a shot that maybe it was in the city.

 

Not a stout, but…. Drinking a Pipeworks Intrinsic Duality barleywine tonight, and this is outstanding. Not quite on VSOJ level, but one of the best barleywines I’ve ever had. Don’t sleep on this one if it’s still available anywhere.

 

If you mean the recent batch of VSOJ...I'd say the Intrinsic Duality barleywine is easily superior. Much more depth and flat-out better flavors.

If you meant the first canned version of VSOJ...yeah, it's not nearly as good. But I enjoyed it.

#2021VSOJwastrashandilldieonthishill

 

I never got a chance to try 2021 VSOJ (maybe I shouldn't bother). I'm going off of the previous batch, which is my all-time standard for barleywine. This one is probably 90% as good as VSOJ b1, and it was sitting on a shelf at Binny's.

 

A couple of pastry stouts hitting distro here:

Foreign Exchange- Between Two Parallels: with Madagascar and Tahitian Vanilla and Marshmallow. No lactose and only $11 for a two pack of pints!

Saint Errant- El Pulpo: Thai Banana, Cinnamon, Vanilla. These guys are on a roll after the last two pastries were the best stouts they’ve released (Crème De Vie & Sina and the Eel), so excited to check this one out.

 

I picked up a 2-pack of El Pulpo because it sounded pretty good. They nailed the adjunct combo, and it's very sweet, but not too sweet. However, as far as I can tell, the beer is not carbonated. Like, not "lightly carbonated" - Not carbonated AT ALL. I can swish it around in my mouth like mouthwash and it doesn't foam. I dumped out the first can of the 2-pack thinking that it was improperly packaged. I did a legit sky-pour on the second can and still didn't get a single bubble. I may as well have been pouring maple syrup. I don't know whether this was intentional. It's not bad for flat beer though, I'm sort of enjoying the second can.

My favorite Saint Errant stout I've tried is Contrapasso. It's a sweet, thick coffee stout that has enough bitterness to balance out the sweetness.

 

Mine was Tepoztecatl. They need to bring back that beer soon.

 

I guess this is subjective, but their stouts are very sweet. I thought Sina was very nice when I had a 6oz pour but anything more is too much. Double Marshmallow Cauallier was pure sugar juice, I definitely got the vanilla/marshmallow, but that's where it ended. Might as well be drinking simple syrup.

Contrapasso sounds more up my alley, the roasted malts need to balance the sweetness. Phase Three's Pressed Reserve is perfect in this sense. Yeah, it's sweet, but the coffee and the roasted malts play so well off each other, it's one of my favorite beers.

 

Two things:

1) Comparing pastry stouts to a coffee porter is akin to comparing hazy IPAs to a pils. If someone is reaching for a pastry stout, no one would suggest a coffee porter or vice versa.

2) You are the first person I’ve heard say that any beer with burnt and gross Tugboat coffee is “perfect,” but like you said subjective opinions and all.

 

There are plenty of pastry stouts with coffee out there. Porter is just a label, basically Shaun's way of saying that this doesn't include any Roasted Barley, but it still has Chocolate and Black malts. I've measured the FG on the P3 Pressed beers and it's well within pastry stout category. The finishing gravity there is 1.080+, which is more than a starting gravity for a porter according to BJCP.

 

You really did a lot of work to shift those goalposts! There may be pastry stouts that have coffee but Pressed Reserve is not one, regardless of your gravity analysis.

By definition, as the term “pastry” is referring to- they are are “sweet, rich, over-the-top dark beers fashioned after desserts, flavored to taste like liquid cakes, cookies, and candy bars. It’s a substyle of imperial stout that showcases ingredients and parlance much more commonplace around a bakery than a brewery.” And that is just from the top hit on google. Pressed Reserve is coffee only with no other flavors.

Shaun makes pastry stouts that are intended to taste like sweet desserts. They are all called Curvature unless it is a collaboration. I personally thought the rye component of Curvature 7 helped it not be quite as sweet with more spice than El Pulpo, if you want to compare bananas to bananas.

 

I definitely got pretty sweet, rich, and over the top dark chocolate flavors and an affogato vibe out of the Reserve in addition to coffee. Other Pressed variants include Maple, Hazelnut, Tiramisu, Coconut and a bunch of others "flavored to taste like liquid cakes, cookies, and candy bars." But I'm not here to argue, just to make a counter-point.

I see your point, as well as Saint Errant's resemblance to Curvature, and yes, both are over the top sweet IMO, but that's not where the style has to end. I have personally been enjoying what I call "adjunct stouts" that are dessert-themed, but are also drinkable and somewhat balanced. I think that these types of beers should be made so that you can drink at least a 12oz can of it, but I realize that the culture has shifted toward beer shares and crazy high untappd ratings, so I'm likely the outlier.

 

So BA Darkness '22 is pretty damn good. First sip out of the fridge I had a bit of buyer's remorse. Let it sit for 20 or so, came back and MUCH better. On the last few ounces now. Have spent almost 2 hours sipping it. I really enjoy Elijah Craig, so I'm not surprised that I enjoy this (i.e. aged in EC 12 year barrels).

Also, Dragon's Milk Triple Mash showed up today. Last I had that it was very worthy of my $.

 

Picked up a can myself and it was a delicious experience.

I've always been a big Darkness fan and especially so BA Darkness, but it had been a few years since having one.

Just an extremely well done, straight up BA stout

 

I wasn’t really a fan of the one year I had of BA darkness. I thought it really lacked the BA, and thus pretty unworthy of the ($30???) bomber price tag. This has me hopeful, and I may have to revisit.