Barley Island Black Majic Java Stout

Bottle from somewhere. Pours a very dark brown with a dissipating brownish head. Nose is slight cocoa falling into a decent coffee scent. On taste, much of the same, straight forward light, sweet coffee notes. Nice body and full character. Pretty decent.

Dark, dark brown, almost inky-slow pour with a slow-forming and long lasting cookie-brown head. Dark roast coffee in the nose with bittersweet chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Dark chocolate flavor with a coffee bitterness in the finish. Full-bodied, but not chokingly-so. Quite good, and it made a really nice treat after a really crappy day. ~~~~~~~~~ Cellared two years. Purchased May 2007 from Corkscrew, Urbana, IL, consumed June 2009.

Growler supplied by StFun (Thanks!) Dark black pour, a little carbonation and a very mellow coffee aroma. Flavor was coffee, a little malt and a little hint of sweetness. Finishes very light on the palate. Overall a very decent coffee beer.

Another rare bottle from Acknud. Pours opaque brown/black with a 4-finger dark tan head. Primary aroma is coffee! Secondary aroma is chocolate. Full bodied with creamy/frothy carbonation. Flavor is coffee, coffee, darkly toasted malt, coffee, and I can’t taste anything else. It moderates, but finishes quite coffee. This is a good kick in the head stout. Arguably underrated.

A growler (!!!) given to me at Foot Sex Day by my pal, StFun. Thanks, Josh!!! Amazing generosity from a superb fella. Anyways, I dug the hell out of this rich and sessionable beer. Big nose is just what I want, roasted coffee out the wazoo. Thick and black, with a big-ass foamy head. The body is moderate, perhaps even slightly too thin. The mouthfeel is chalky in a way I think is appropriate to style. Deep coffee flavors with dry dark chocolate too. Is it perhaps one-dimensional? Sure, but I actually want precisely this from a coffee stout in this style. It’s not gonna replace Breakfast Stout but it’s damn fine. Thanks, bro!!!

Pours black with a small, rapidly dissipating head. Pretty much straight coffee aroma with a bit of sweetness. Standard but nice coffee flavor. Not bad but not as creamy as I prefer my oatmeal stouts to be on the palate.

In short: A highly roasted stout (and I mean HIGHLY roasted) balanced by fresh green hops. Very good.
How: Bottle 12oz, from kmweaver. Thanks a lot Ken!
The look: Black body topped by a long-lasting small tan head.
In long: Nose is roasted, more roasted, even more roasted. I could smell the roastiness from 2 feet away and to a lower extent the aroma had some roasted coffee beans. Taste is more of the same, roasted malts, hightly roasted malts and very highly roasted malts. All that roastiness would only be ok but where it gets interesting is in the balance part of the beer. A whole lots of fresh green hops in there was somewhat reminiscent of chewing on hops cone. Good session beer that has even more burnt flavour than my girlfriend’s cooking.

Jeckyl and Hyde, Yin and Yang, Good and Bad. This was that beer. While it carried with it a really inticing aroma of chocolate covered espresso beans, treacle, and toffee, the flavor really was a let down. It had a nice coffee/dark chocolate beginning and then, bam...nothing. It just dropped off the palate in an instant and what was left reminded me of drinking a seltzer water. A nice black hue, medium bodied with a one-finger thick tan head. I think if the beer had more depth of flavor, it would score much higher with me. Decent beer, but could have been much, much better.