Bells Cherry Stout

Brewed by Bells Brewery
Style: Sweet Stout
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

12oz bottle. Pour is black, minimal tan head disappears quickly. Zero lace. Aroma is roasted malt and licorice. Taste is licorice overwhelmed by bitter sour cherry. Palate puckering,medium body. Does not taste like a stout. Honestly I would choose a macro pale lager over this any day. Managed to choke it down, but would not do so again. Ever.

Aroma has a distinct cherry scent, obviously, with sweet malt background. Appearance is a very nice dark, dark brown with a tint of red on the rim. Head is dark tan/brown that dissipates to thin layer across the top and leaves a nice lacing around the glass all the way down. Flavor is sweet cherry with chocolate and malt backgrounds. The mouthfeel is smooth and warm bodied and the finish is sweet...very sweet....too sweet for my liking. This brew is good in some aspects and it follows the definition of a sweet stout, but for my likings of beers, sweet is alright but it can be taken a little too far and this one is taken a bit far with the sweetness.

I was truly excited about this beer and kept it cooled for weeks building anticipation. Unfortunately it just didn’t go down all that well. A great looking smallish head was dark tan with some red. Black beer. Aroma was full of roasted notes with cherry wood. Resembled an impy with the wood. Flavor is where it fell. The cherry, while sounding delicious, didn’t live up to hopes. The cherry did not mix well with the chocolate and coffee.

Bottle. Pours near black with a brown head. Sweet and roasted aroma with a bit of cherry and chocolate. The flavor starts sweet and lingers on cherry for a while before yeilding to a nice bitter roasted coffee finish.

Wow, I don’t know how this is rated just above the 70’s... This beer is like a framboise and a super thick stout. Sugary, super sugary, but so crisply tart. And that classic Bell’s dark earthiness that dresses all their finer beers. I found this one to be fantastic, and it’s always nice to rate a new Bell’s product.

Pours semi-dark, unnoticeable head. Pleasing cherry, coffee aroma. Taste is sharp and thin, and kind of like rotten cherries. Finish is full and dark roasted cherry malt. Not the worst and not the best stout I’ve had. If you’re ever at Turoni’s in Evansville in December, try the seasonal "chocolate-covered cherry stout". I didn’t see it on here, but it is similar in style to this beer by Bells and 100% more drinkable in my opinion. Overall, I’d say the next one of these I have will be free to me.

One of my favorite brews from Bell’s, and my most recommended; this starts with a big black body and a dark tan, burnt creamy looking head that leaves plenty of beautiful lacing on the glass. The aroma is gentle, very sweet and mellow, with the chocolate, java, and malty roastedness of a normal stout, yet with a heavy lingering aroma of fresh ripe berries with a tart edge. Attractive marshmallow and strong vanilla notes fill the nose, along with licorice and a doughy, cake-batter-like presence. The taste is wonderfully sweet and slightly tart, with montmorency and maraschino cherries, roasted coffee beans and jam. This beer is awesome on the palate! It starts soft and velvety, and ends very tangy, sharp, and puckering, creating a lovely mouthfeel similar to drinking cherry juice, yet all the while backed with the luscious, invigorating body of a delicious stout. The cherries mellow out the hop bitterness profoundly, and make for a cleaner, sweeter, less drying finish. Very interesting. Delicious!

Finger-thick dark brown, slightly burgundy head cascades into thin speckling. An eclipse, this beer is jet black. The nose is bitter chocolate covered cherries with notes of coffee. The I was very disappointed by this brew’s body. It looked big, it smelled big, but it was very thin. As far as flavor is concerned, the alcohol was a little too apparent, but this was offset by subtle, tart cherry and coffee.