Dark Horse Fore Smoked Stout

Brewed by Dark Horse Brewing Company
Style: Smoked
Marshall, Michigan USA

Slightly opaque black pour with a rather small reddish-tan head. Chocolate, smoky aroma with coffee and licorice notes. Full bodied. Low carbonation. Roasty, smoked flavor up front. Middle brings out a bit more coffee and leads to a bitter finish. This is a good smoked beer, not in your face agressive but a nice complement to the coffee and chocolate.

Pours hazy medium black with a frothy light brown head. Aroma is heavily malty of bread and cookies, with hints of smoke. Flavor is balanced twords sweet, smoke, coffee and chocolate are dominate flavors. Medium to full bodied, creamy and flat.

12 ounce bottle from Bello Vino in Ann Arbor, MI (June 2007), served at cellar temperature from a Maudite glass. Inky-black and totally opaque under strong light, with a smallish dissipating dark chocolate head....smokiness is very restrained in the nose, a disappointment to this rauch-lover but what’s there is nice: lots of dark chocolaty roast, a bit of espresso, cherries, and then...wait....the peaty, earthy notes come through after a couple of minutes....nice.....the body is quite rich, decadent almost, thick and chocolate-malty with a light fruity-yeasty component most prominent in the middle, a touch of tart apple-cherry juice towards the finish, and a quite dry woody/bitter chocolate finish....the mouthfeel is a touch cardboardy at the end initially but it brightens up and the dullness recedes after a few sips....this is one of the least smoky of smoked beers I’ve had, and I find it hard to place in the stout family: not quite complex enough as an Imperial, not fruity or vinous enough for a Foreign stout, not really sweet.....all that said, the balance is elegant, it’s quite drinkable and enjoyable, whatever one calls it, and I’m quite happy to have it after a couple of years of fruitless looking.

Bottle. Very dark brown colour allmost black with a little head. Aroma of roastedness and hints of smoke. Flavour of roastedness, chocolate, coffee and little smokeness, very nice and smooth.

This pours out thick and dark brown with a smallish cocoa head. Nice rauch aroma, not meaty like the Bamberger brews, but having a woody smokiness that smoothly complements the roasted malt, barley, and coffee scents. The flavor is that of a solid, roasty tasting Stout, having the add-ons of some dark bittersweet chocolate and minced hard nuts. The smoke is there, but in a supportive role. Pretty decent.

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12 oz. bottle. Pours black with a small tan head that disappears quickly leaving only an outer ring. The aroma has many stout qualities: strong malt backbone, chocolate, a hint of molasses, but not much smoke. The flavor exhibits many of the characteristics of the aroma. This is a good stout. The roasted malts, chocolate, dark fruits are all present. The smoked flavor shows up late into the finish. The mouthfeel is medium-full and is sliky smooth going down. I like this one for the stout that it is, not the smoked as it is classified.

Bottle. A black beer with a brown head. The aroma is of chocolate, dark fruits and smoke, so is the taste, but light sweet. Medium body with a dry finish.

Pours a deathly dark dark brown up there with imperial stouts with a rapidly vanishing dark tan head, no head at all in under 30 seconds. The nose is standard big ass stout with just hints of smoke. Sweet licorice and roast. Bits of herbal chocolate. A flat viscous body that while subdued, had some life. Reminiscent of Founder’s Breakfast Stout. Big roast chocolate and alcohol. Some chocolate. A bit of fruity roast like a good cup of coffee. The nose doesn’t hold the smoke as much as the flavor. Over the Breakfast Stout backdrop with licorice there’s a bit of that bandaidy smoke flavor. Also a bit of diacetyl, befitting the style. The finish is strong with licorice and herbs. Not a bad beer at all.