Back Road Belle Gunness Stout

Brewed by Back Road Brewery
Style: Dry Stout
LaPorte, Indiana USA

Pretty pour, deep brown with chestnut edges. Medium tan head fades slowly, never fully. Chocolate and roasted grains have an equal stake in the aroma. Mild licorice, smoke and caramel and vanilla in even lesser quantities. Alcohol is far too apparent for a beer of this modest strength. Notes of marshmallows and graham crackers develop late in the nose. Really, the desription is more flattering than the reality of the aroma. Flavor is a stark contrast to the nose, awful is the first word that comes to mind. A saccharine sweetness, a depthless roastiness, stale caramels, a mess. Very vegetal in a green, unrefined and mostly unfinished sense of the term. Light to moderate bitterness, heavily sweet. Gargantuan astringency consumes the roastiness, leaving a trickling of roast and some charred maple flavor behind. Finishes utterly disgusting, far too lengthy in this case. Light-medium in body, overly carbonated. Atrocious from the first sip to the last. I want to be kind, so here’s a positive. I didn’t pour it out.

Bottle. Pours a fizzy very dark red/brown with not much of a head at all. The top 1/4 inch or so is transparent into the body. The nose is musty and slightly gummy with hints of chocolate and coffee. Body is a bit thin for the style. The dryness here is more abrasive than I’d like in this kind of thing. A decent chocolate flavor is present along with toffee. Mouthfeel is highly fizzy for a stout. This is not that great, but I’ve certainly had worse.

bottle...i had high hopes for this beer, being one of the few IN breweries that I had not yet tried, but this stout is nothing to write home about...certainly not offensive, but this seemed like a pretty bland interpretation of the style

Courtesy tish. Black. 1.5cm of frothy tan head. Not much in the flavor or aroma. What is there is roasty and chocolatey, perhaps a little bit of licorice candy, also. Medium/light body, well carbonated.

On tap at the brewpub. Pitch black with some whipped brown head. Lots of bubbles. Roasted and chared aroma. Lots of bubbles on the palate. Drinks like soda. Coffee and roasted flavor. Not something I will drink again.

Good looking beer, a nearly black dark brown with a multi-fingered tan head that laced in sheets. It has a quiet aroma of cold coffee, milk chocolate, and lightly roasted malts. Kind of a watery mouthfeel to it. The flavor is a bit sweeter than the nose would bring you to expect, but no new elements are added. Actually for a Dry Stout, a dull style in my opinion, this isn’t too bad.

<font size=-4>Thanks to <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/ViewUser.asp?UserID=1 and budding beer geek Jak who brought a bunch of beers back from Indiana and decided to share them.<font size=-1>

Attractive pour...rich deep brown with a huge tan rocky head. The nose is muted chocolate and coffee. The flavors seem watered down as is the palate...mostly light chocolate and coffee but touches of toffee in the finish. Very average. Thanks to budding beer geek Jak who brought a bunch of beers back from Indiana and decided to share them.

Draft sample at IBGF 06. Black color with a moderate brown frothy head that diminished slowly with fair lacing. Moderate roasted malt aroma. Medium body with a smooth texture. Medium roasted flavor with a medium dry finish of moderate duration.