Bison Organic Chocolate Stout

Brewed by Bison Brewing Company
Style: Stout
Berkeley, California USA

Pours deep brown with very little head. Nice aroma of slight coffee, leather, and mmmmmm chocolate. On first sip, flavor is more smoke than imagined with hint of cocoa amd a bitter finish. You have to let this warm a bit before rating the flavor, so after letting it warm for for 5, smoother tones emerge, but the over all flavor is still smokey with a touch of cocoa. Slight bitter, and dry finish. Not bad.

Deep brown,tan head. Great cocoa dark chocolate nose. Light bodied cocoa taste lightly roasted,undercarbonated. Not a stout, actually a brown ale. For those who say it was black, look again, hold it to the light, you can see through it!!

Overall this beer was a very middle of the road stout. In fact, I really didn’t get that much of the chocolate out of it. Some roasted malts on the nose. Drank okay, but was a bit chalky and dry at times.

Decent stout here. NEver had an organic before.....surprisingly not much difference in the way it tastes compared to non-organic. Not much scent and the taste is a bit watered down. Overall an enjoyable drinkable brew.......just not much more than that.

On the pour, the beer is pure black, head is dark brown. Aroma is of chocolate, dark, burnt coffee. Tastes of coffee, choclate, dark hops, wood, burnt barely malt. Medium on the palate, thick and frothy, slightly slippery. Beer is medium to strong flavored, sweet, pretty bitter. Flavor is ok, but Ive had much better. Dont know how old this bottle is, Im sure it would be much better if it were fresher. Overall, ok, but not great.

bottle 22 oz. this stout was OK but nothing special. At least it was good as far as the sweet/bitter ratio. There was just an off flavor with a touch of burnt rubber hose for me. Into medium bodied somewhat, I’ve had thinner though. Old Rasputin is just about the same price and a much better stout. I won’t buy this again.

Pours with a frothy, initially two-finger thick (but only once poured vigorously), brownish, tan colored head. The beer sits in my glass a blackened brown color, but showed a brilliantly clear, dark chocolate color as I poured it. Aromas of chocolate intermingle with darkly toasted malt, bready-espresso aromatics and once you start digging around a significant aroma of smoked malt. That last was a bit surprising, especially since I am sure they don’t actually use smoked malt in this beer, but it is quite distinct. The beer does not have an over-the-top chocolate character to it, meaning what is noticeable in the aroma could be attributed to various, dark malt combinations.

Lightly sweet, with a medium-full heft on the palate. The sweet malt notes definitely accentuated a nice chocolate character. Toasted, almost burnt, whole grain bread flavors linger on in the finish. The beer has a touch of roast derived acidity and a definite dark grain bitterness, both of which are in the finish and help to counter-balance the sweeter malt notes and chocolate found up front. It is hard to separate them, but it seems like the hop character is contributing a fair amount of bitterness here as well. Caramelized malt, something like blackened prunes, burnt figs and a touch of chocolate liquor provide some up front sweetness / smoothness to this beer.

This beer tends to thin out as my palate gets used to it and as it warms up. This makes it more drinkable, but I would wish for it to be a touch richer so that it would continue to accentuate the chocolate notes. I also have a minor complaint with the heavy handed dark malt notes; there is a touch too much burnt, slightly acrid, definitely acidic blackened malt character here, or put another way this does not have enough sweet / caramelized malt character to serve as a complete foil for these notes. For all my complaints this beer is quite drinkable and even quite enjoyable; I easily will finish this 22oz bottle, despite my meandering ruminations on how this beer could be better.

Purchased: Bevmo, Pasadena CA

Date: 07/31/2004
Mode: Bottle
Source: Bullock’s

chocolate aroma immediatly upon opening the bottle and even before pouring the thick black liquid into the glass, nice tan head, rich roasted chocolate aroma and flavor, flavor just keeps getting richer as it warms, lots of bitterness in the finish that eventually becomes too much after a while, overall a very good stout except for the overdone bitter malt finish
-------- /> Date: 01/19/2005

still good flavor over shadowed by too much bitterness

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 13/20
Rating: 3/5.0
Score: **+/4
-------- /> The score was calculated based upon the notes and an old scoring system.