Founders Breakfast Stout

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

Thick syrupy black pour, not much of a head, but rousing produces a dark tan froth that releases a pungent coffee aroma with a whiff of sweet chocolate in the background. The coffee aroma is more intense and pleasing than the other coffee beers I’ve had so far - it has a nice roasted component to it. Palate was medium-bodied. Taste is a blend of coffee and chocolate notes and the finish is a mild acidic bitterness, but it is smooth with some hop flavor coming out in the end.

(10/13/08) Draught at Map Room in Chicago. Opaque black-colored with a medium light brown head. Aroma of roasted malt and coffee beans. Sweet roasty flavor with some Turkish coffee and finishes with lingering bitterness with roastiness and some herbal notes. Rather full-bodied. A very good Stout.

Bottle thanks to cavie. Pours a very nice looking deep, dark brown/black with chocolate colored head. Aroma is great, coffee, grain, malty, chocolate. Flavor id EXACTLY the same, very nice dark roastiness as well. Mouth feel is heavy body with low-medium carbonation, a little creamy. Overall, a VERY nice tasty brew....I want again! Good Shit!

Good thing I LOVE coffee. Pours a motor oily thick black with a light brown head. Incredibly beautiful aroma of potting soil, roasty coffee and piney US hops. Taste has big notes of coffee and coffee, chocolate, earthiness, roasted malt, hops, some dark fruit and rum; awesome. Very full, round and creamy on the palate; seriously - the body on this beer HAS to be the silkiest thing on the planet. The great roastyness lingers forever. I have had this beer on four separate occasions over the past couple years; (full bottles) it never ceases to amaze. Perfection.

Bottle courtesy of iowaherkeye. Pours black with a dark tan head that dissipates rapidly. Aroma of coffee predominantly, followed by roasted malt, nuts, and rich sweet malt. Flavor of coffee roast, peanuts, some burnt malt. Solid body. Great beer (it didn’t awe me though). 8/4/7/4/16

Rerate 11/23/08: Growler. Pours black with a small tan head that fades rapidly. Aroma of roasted malt, coffee, and roasted nuts. Flavor of sweet roasted malt and lots of coffee and nuts. Tasty and very drinkable for an imperial stout. Nice coffee presence. Lots of chocolate peanut butter. Yum!

Black oily pour with a medium dark tan head. Head reduces down to a thin film that is creamy. Huge coffee aroma pummels you when you put your nose in the glass. Dark burnt coffee flavor. I’m having a hard time tasting anything other than bitter dark coffee. Body seems a little light for an imperial. I was surprised by the coffee aroma, but the flavor and palate are dissapointing.

Black lacquer body, I sense brown upon it but only see black. A chocolate milk brown top about an inch high sits on top with a lovely creamy rich denseness. Crown slowly percolates down to a whispy bubbled skim and the lacing is quite sticky and layered in sporatic thick webby curtains. Oh my this is lovely! Wow, what a great aromatic display on this of bold, rich mocha java, sweet oats, chocolate, fudge, and loads of robust roastyness. Incredible little dollps of tangy prune and burnt molasses keep an almost sour undertone to it. Unfortunately it tends to mellow out and becomes less potent as it sits but still is a wonderment to let flood into the nasal aura. The taste is the perfect carbon copy of the smell but set with much more adorned tones and length. Its heavy, rich, blanketing, and bakes long lasting flavors of big chocolate shavings covered on top of thick, fluffy Swedish french toast glazed with whipped buttered cream and molasses syrup. Sides with dark oatmeal cookie sweetness and is then followed with hardy coffee bean bitterness and milky dark chocolate bitterness, making this one hell’uva meal of a brew. Need I say more? De-fuckin’-licious! Well rounded roast and bitterness creates a delicately silken full body. Unlimited amounts of roastified textures and darkly bittered chocolate/coffee delivers itself for eons across the playing field of the palate. Great oaty sweetness and mild sour pruneyness transcends underneath with an aloofingly amazing accuracy creating just enough balance to keep that roasty/bitter/burnt stuff from completely dominating. Satisfingly drinkable by leaps and bounds. Move over Bell’s Java Stout...Breakfast is the first meal of the day. ...Actually, give me a couple bottles of this stuff any time of the day and I’ll be a happy man. Very happy!

Bottle at the brewpub, not even releaed yet this year.. Thanx Kevin!!! nose is all coffee, dark brown almost black, foam is tan big head that turns to a creme just like esspresso. flavor is incredible choc, coffee, everything i could want in a stout!!!