Southern Tier Choklat Stout

Name: Blackwater Series Imperial Choklat Stout
Style: Imperial stout
ABV: 11.0% (9% quoted on the import label...)
Serving: 650ml bottle
Brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company
Location: Lakewood, NY, USA
Weblink: Southern Tier Beers

Just to prove that I do drink beers from outside Ontari-airy-airy-oh, here's a monstrous offering from western New York's Southern Tier brewery. Bought from the specialist cabinet at, yes, Pub Italia in Ottawa, it was a bit of a treat at $20 for a single 650 ml bottle. But hey, sometimes you gotta push the boat out.

The beer pours thick and resinous, with an oily sheen and thin, dark brown head. The aromas that pour off the beer are, well, fairly un-beer-like. The first scent that you detect is a slightly milky sweetness, followed by burnt coffee notes and a thick, rich chocolate undertow. And that's pretty much how it tastes as well; as my drinking companion put it, "like alcoholic Nesquik!" There is obviously an awful lot of fine, dark chocolate and rich cocoa gone into each bottle of this mighty brew, and these have swamped out all but the most bombastic elements of the malt's own flavour profile. Gradually these do ease their way through from the back, however, with a pleasing tobacco and black coffee toastyness gradually filling your mouth as the chocolate fades away. The one thing you can't taste - surprisingly, given its high ABV - is alcohol, although you can feel its warming presence in your throat, and see its effects in the way that the room begins to shimmer after a while!

One of the nicest parts of this beer is the way that it feels in your mouth. There is a robust, voluminous richness, that is tempered and enhanced by a smooth, silky feel as the beer slides towards the back of your mouth. This beer is certainly an experience, but not one I can see myself indulging in too frequently. It does pretty much what it says on the bottle label, but there isn't much complexity here and after a while this means that the beer loses its attraction. The 650 ml bottle is probably enough for 2-3 people to share but one on your own is a bit much. So take a friend of two, crack open a bottle, sip it from a snifter, and let the chocolate wash over you.