Cottonwood Hazelnut Stout

Brewed by Carolina Beer Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Mooresville, North Carolina USA

Roasted hazelnut pours from the aroma. Upon closer exam, there is a deep bitter bakers chocolate and perhaps some vanilla in there as well. Pours a very dark brown with a viscous tan head. A bit of tartness lends a very drinkable quality to this thick strong stout. The alcohol content is very obvious in this one. Flavor is bittersweet with hazelnut in every corner and crevice of this beer. Don’t even think about trying this one with dinner. This is a desert beer all the way.

Bottle #295: Ross brought this limitied release goodie to the Tennessee Spring(ish) Tasting in Knoxville, TN on 3/10/2007... Cottonwood Hazelnut Stout is black in color with a diminishing brown head. The aroma is just bursting with chocolate, coconut, and marzipan. Very unique. Even better, this beer tastes just like it smells. Rich and pleasingly intense coconut and marizpan flavors waken the tastebuds to new and exciting flavors. An Almond Joy coconut flavor lingers long after the finish. These great flavors are accompanied by a moderate level of sweetness overall. The only thing that was a little disappointing about this beer was that seems to be over carbonated to the point of being almost to fizzy for the medium body to suppress. Ross, this was an extremely tasty brew. What an experience! Thank you so much for sharing it. I really appreciate it.

This was easily the surprise of the Knoxville tasting. Keep in mind that this immediately followed the BA Speedway, which I figured would be akin to Charles Grodin following a coked up Robin Williams on the tonight show. But alas, this certainly held its own. Pours black, with a big beige head. Very nutty, sweet aroma, like Nutella, I think. Sweet, nutty flavor, too, with notes of walnuts, marzipan, and almonds. Nice brew here. Thanks to ross for bringing this to the tasting!

Sampled at the Knoxville Tasting. I had been holding onto this beer for a while after reading the previous three reviews of it saying that it was perhaps too much to bring out for yourself, and better to split it, so thats just what I did. Pours out a dark black color with a thin tan head on it. The smell is so strong, that I could smell it being poured two seats down from me. Coconut, hazelnut, coffee, some light chocolate notes, powerful, amazing smelling beer. Taste is sweet and thick, very rich, some coffee notes, but alot of coconut and hazelnut. Very strong and very sweet, probably too much for me to drink a whole bomber of by myself, but damn, it is a really solid good beer. Very well done guys.

Thanks to Ross for sharing bottle #295 with us at the Tennessee Spring(ish) Tasting! This opaque black beer forms a tan head. Complex nutty aroma, big malt, coffee cocoa, lots going on here. The flavor follows the aroma and develops and changes nicely as the beer warms. Sweet, smooth palate. Excellent as well as different!

Thanks to BleacherBum for this!! "Cottonwood High Cotton Hazelnut Stout", 2006, Bottle #243. Poured medium-viscosity, deep garnety brown with a short cap of very deep brown head. The aroma reminded me of coffee with the creamer my wife used to use in it (chocolate/hazelnut).. rich coffee and chocolate with powerful hazelnut that I could smell from 4 feet away.. a bit of oak in there as well.. I must say that I enjoyed this! The flavor had much more chocolate than coffee.. dry-roasted and semi-sweet.. hazelnut, coconut, vanilla, and grainy oak surround (also some mild sourness from the oak).. finished dry with roasted chocolate and toasty coconut (I don’t like coconut, but I’ll make an exception when it’s presented this way). Medium-bodied, dry, and slightly sour on the palate.. I wish it was a touch thicker.. grainy back-end worked well for presenting the chocolate and hazelnuts. Excellent brew!

Thanks to Ross for the chance to try this beer. A dark brown almost black pour. A huge aroma of coconut controls the aroma of this beer. It was hard to drink it because the aroma just held onto you. There was just a little let down on the taste but the aroma made the taste almost impossible to measure up. A slightly sweet flavor with the coconut bearing the majority of the flavor chased lightly by the hazelnut. The palate was a little thin and a tad over carbonated. The aroma carries this beer not a bad flavor but what could hold a candle to the aroma. thanks Ross!

Pours black with tan head. The aroma is great as long as you want hazelnut. I could smell the beer as soon as it was on the bar. I have to say I have never had a beer with a stronger aroma. With that in mind I assumed it was going to be a disaster in the flavor. However the flavor is definately dominated by tha hazelnut it was queit nice. There was some hint of malt and some bitterness. We then decided that this beer needed something sweet so we ordered a wood fired chocolate cip cookie and vanilla hagendaz ice cream (wood on south in Charlotte) and the combination was a treat. Suddenly the hazelnut was much more balanced with the sweet desert. I would still like more bitterness in the beer itself but as a desert beer with a nice sweet chocolate desert I would have it again in a heartbeat. On its own once is enough.