Founders Breakfast Stout

Brewed by Founders Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Thanks to Puddintane for this great bonus! Nearly pitch black color with a big and thick brown head. Aroma is thick and sweet with lots of dark, well-roasted coffee, sweet and rich chocolates, plus a hefty helping of choco-sugary breakfast breads. Flavor is thick with big and tasty espresso and chocolate. Lots of coffee here plus a thick, bready feel/taste and a light bitter ending. Wonderful brew - especially for us strong coffee lovers

Thanks Strykzone for this superb beer. From a 12 oz bottle this poured inky black with a fat tan head that lasted a very long time and left very thick lacking rings. The nose is very rich with roasted malts giving aromas of chocolate, rip fruits and coffee. Lots of coffee. About as smooth and rich a mouthfeel as you can imagine, Flavors are dominated by the coffee, but there is still good balance leading up to a long dry bitter finish. Fantastic stuff.

Disclaimer: Please no hate mail after this rating, as I am not a coffee lover. Pours dark oily black with dark tanhead. Nice lacing. Aroma and flavor is all bitter black coffee with a long coffee aftertaste.

Sampled with Decaturstevo, Shag, and Beerhawk over breakfast after the zap-it gathering. Near black pour with huge light brown head. Aroma is like Kahlua. Flavors of dark chocolate and coffee. Medium full body with low carbonation. Admittedly, i’m not a coffee drinker, but this was enjoyable. Gotta start the day right with an 8% abv! What a way to end an awesome tasting.

MI brewer’s guild fest-Tap- Dark oily pour with a thin mocha ring.Pungent coffee hits hard, and drives it home. Huge roasty qualities, with a unique earthy espresso-ness. Bitter roasty upfront, with cold morning black coffee flavours flanking, and filling the mouth. Mochachino finish. Silky smooth, and silky. A brew ha ha, this is good.

(Bottle, thanks Ughsmash and Hopschotch) Pours black with a huge light brown head. Strong roasted and burned coffee aroma with tones of salty liquorice, new asphalt hyacinth and maybe some smoke. A lot of coffee in the flavour as well with some notes of liquorice, chocolate ice cream and some tar. Soft, smooth but thick and oily mouthfeel with a near full body. Lingering burned coffee and dark malt aftertaste with a light dryness and bitterness. Not overly complex but truly ass kicking.

Bottle, thanks, Iowaherkeye, for this treat! Pours very black with just hints of red underneath the small dark tan head. This stuff smells awesome. Notes of baked oats, chocolate, coffee, ashes, are in the nose. The body is semi-thick with low carbonation. The oats cut through in combination with a very earthy coffee presence. Soft, delicate chocolate is beneath the smokier notes and an almost porter-like ashtray finish rounds everything out. The alcohol is not at all detectable. This is an excellent stout which flaunts almost anything that I would look for in a dark ale of this sort.
[Thanksgiving Day]
Ah, this is even better than I remember, and that’s saying a lot. The pour is magnificent with a very tall, dense, creamy dark tan head. Just sniffing this beautiful beverage gets my salivary glands going. It’s so creamy in the mouth with a savory chocolate finish that follows up a huge amount of toasted oats and earthy coffee tones. I really wish I could have this on a regular basis.
[April 27, ’07]
Yeah, I love this beer. Perfect defined oaty, nutty flavor with delicious chocolate and an ashy finish. Nice and heavy and savory. This time I picked up some olives in the aroma along with things previously noted above. This is pushing the boundaries for the style.

I really like one dimensional beers. There. I said it. I love complex beers just the same. But if a beer is one dimensional it better be friggin’ awesome. Alas, this beer was one dimensional and that one dimension was used coffee grounds. Coffee in the nose, coffee in the flavor...coffee coffee coffee. I would have liked another bottle to age for a bit, perhaps the coffee will mellow out over time but at the time of tasting it was way overboard. Still, it wasn’t a disaster and is still better than some out there. Give me Speedway any day.