Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Denver, Colorado USA

[Bottle] Pours pitch black with a smallish brown head. Aroma is acrid coffee beans, roasted barley, and some vanilla. Flavor is super acrid, lots of bitter chocolate and barley, some vanilla and oak, and the finish is straight up coffee grounds. Super rich mouthfeel, really nice and velvety.

Large bottle. Had to try this after enjoying the (non-espresso) Oak Aged Yeti and really enjoying it. This one too is extremely good with alot of complex flavors. I think I really do need to drink this side by side with the other Yetis to taste the differences. I think I may have actually liked the non-espresso slightly better but they are both very good.

A beautiful pour, black and heady... Great mouthfeel, but too damn hoppy and bitter for a Coffee Stout. The Coffee is muddled with the lupulin bitternss causing disjointed flavors on my palate. I want to dig it but I don’t. I truly like the GD beers; however the massive amount of bittering hops fully destroyed the espresso presence, simply, too much boldness in one bottle.

Bottle. Pours black with a brown colored head. Aroma is dark choclate, roast, coffee, maybe ahint of oak. Flavor is choclate, coffee, burnt sugar, vanilla, metallic, hitn of oak. Palate is full bodied, mild carbonation, finished massively bitter, almost too bitter for my liking. Found this annoying metallic taste throughout that I just couldn’t overlook, and distracted from the beer. Decent, but flawed IMO.

Pours solid black with a thick brown head. Cocoa and roast aroma. Very heavy feel with a lot of bitter espresso and also a sweet creamy milk finish.

After my first bottle shattered on the floor this one poured very black with a small tan head. Aroma was roast, light coffee, and some oak coming through. I dont know if i am a lot more sensitive to the oak flavor in this but i found it way overpowering. It seemed to totally ruin the beer for me. I really wanted to like this one. The lingering taste on the tongue was just not that palatable to me at all.

Bomber from Liquor Stop in Highland, Indiana: This pours out a thick brown liquid that turns almost black in the glass and is topped by a tall light brown head full of all sizes and shapes of bubbles. The glass gets coated in pastey sheets of thick lace. It smells like strong coffee and alcohol. Fortunately, the flavor gets more complex. It welcomes the addition of bitter chocolate, charred wood, roasted malt, anise, and a suggestion of vanilla. There a sharp astringent jab at the back end that’s not very welcome... at least to me. It finishes on a bittersweet chocolate note with a burnt nut bitterness and a low alcohol burn. Interesting, but unbalanced.

I had this beer at the Great Divide Brewery taproom in Denver on 4/5/09. It had a strong coffee smell but mild coffee taste. Incredible body and flavor. One of the best stouts I have ever had!