Thursday. Great night of the week for bier tasting, and for some reason we both brought out the heavies!
This week Brad brought along a bottle of Avery Mephistopheles Stout from Avery Brewing (Colorado), an Imperial Stout that weighs in at 16.43% ABV.
This bier pours a dark black with a subtle red tinge, and has a nice chocolate head that leaves behind a little lacing. The aroma is oak, liquorice, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and booze. It is warming to the palate with a slight slickness to the mouthfeel. The taste starts big and chocolately, followed by some vanilla, lots of oak, a little liquorice and a bitter roast coffee finish. It has a bit too much overall booziness which makes it a little harsh, but it has a good depth and will probably age nicely.
My contribution was a bottle of Mikkeller Black (Cognac Edition). This is an imperial stout from Danish microbrewery Mikkeller, and the beer was aged for 3 months in Cognac barrels. It weighs in at a huge 17.5% ABV.
This bier is a thick dark black with a good chocolate head that leaves behind some great lacing. The aroma is incredible - liquorice, toffee, dates, wood, cognac, vanilla. The mouthfeel is oily and the bier has an incredible complexity on the palate – sweet to start, slowly fading to a subtle bitterness on the finish. The taste is raisins, plums, toffee, figs, chocolate and coffee. It is an amazing beer that is good for sitting back with, slowly sipping and savouring.