Green Flash Stout (Double Stout)

Brewed by Green Flash Brewing Co.
Style: Stout
Vista, California USA

Pours through the air dark but picking up deep burgandy highlites. It settles in the glass dark, burgandy covered brown with thick, lacey brown head. Thick gooey nose with tarrish roast, bittersweet chocolate, licorice, cookie dough, chocolate covered orange peel, booze, and with a touch of lactic tang. Powdery mouthfeel leaves a dusty feeling in the mough...flavors are soft, chocolatey like powdered cocoa, with notes of coffee. Bitterness in the finish is strong and the alcohol not exactly completely hidden and certainly warming. The powdery mouthfeel is a little distracting and makes the overall experience feel dirty. The flavors unfortunately don’t mimic the refineness of the nose and feel flimsy and about to fall away...the alcohol is somewhat hot and peppery, There’s also a growing garbage/rotting vegetable taste coming out. I opened the bottle around cellar temps, but im sticking it in the freezer for a few with flavors like that.

Cocoa, roasted coffee, and toasted English malts in the aroma with a grassy noble hop presence. Thick, dark brown body, huge tan head and heavy lacing create a fantastic appearance. Creamy and full bodied, a very rich beer with a silky finish coupled with a nice bitterness. Loads of milk chocolate and fudge along with nutty, roasted malts followed by molasses and plums. Great stout, great deal and I just drank my last bottle.

Bomber->honker: pours a huge creamy, lasting, brown head atop a black body. Aroma of coffee and caramel. Heavy body, long aftertaste, astringent finish. Another great product from Green Flash.

Bottle. Pours pitch black with a nice thick tan head with nice thick lacing. Roasted malt, caramel, and chocolate in the nose. Roasted nuts starts the flavor, followed by an nice bitter chocolate/coffee bite, ends with a touch of caramel sweetness. Very thick and chewy. Great stout.

What the hell is this!!!! I know Green Flash can get make some seriously badass beers, but this was a complete suprise. I had not idea that this was going to be as good as it was, but I guess I should have known since it was...well...Green Flash.

The beer pours out a deep inky black color with a creamy brown/dark tan frothy head, that looks like it belongs on a frothy cup of cappucino or something similar. The lasting of the head was really spectacular, and just really a highlight. Aroma starts out with a huge blast of roasted malts and dark, decadent chocolate. The vanilla seems to ease it’s way onto the scene without much of a problem and it’s got a damn near perfect balance of being burnt without being ashy.

Lost of sweetness left behind on the palate but it works really well here. Seemingly tempering the bitter chocolate/coffee angle like eating a nice dark chocolate square of 70% cocoa, it carries all the beauty of bitter chocolate but still being easy to enjoy many, many times over. This ones all about the chocolate and how it harmonizes with the roasted malts. Combine that with the beautiful pour and the mesmerizing aroma...and you have a fantastic stout.

Cask Stillage from the Jug at the GABF, Colorado Convention Center 26/09/2009 Oak vanilla aroma. Beige head. Black rich on the palate and strong in alcohol with a smooth and slightly bitter chocolate roast finish.

Poured deep deep brown, almost black, completely opaque, with a nice tan head that took a good long time to settle to a nice thin film. Excellent lacing that looked like tears dripping down the sides. Espresso aromas were strongest with plenty of chocolate powder and hints of vanilla, orange, and butter. Flavors were pretty much the same, highlighted by roasted maltiness that came through as a bold coffee taste. Buttery smoothness like you would expect from a fine wine, no carbonation to speak of, and a wonderful chocolate aftertaste. This is excellent - a real pleasure.

THOUGHTS: I was originally going to say that it was a nice beer, but not a great imperial stout and that I wasn’t sure if they intended it to be considered an impy stout, but I see know that its style has been changed to a plain stout; so now I can say that it was a great stout. I did rate it as a stout, because something just didn’t seem right about calling this an impy. When it warmed it did get a little more impy-like, but I’m glad to see the style change has been noted. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a dark brown that was a nearly opaque black in the glass with hints of red highlights at the edges and a small, tan to light brown head that mostly diminished and left fair lacing. The aroma was moderate to heavy chocolate, coffee, and cocoa, that was slightly artificial, and dark fruit. The initial flavor was rather sweet, lightly acidic and slightly bitter; while the finish was sweet and moderately bitter with an average to long duration. There was chocolate syrup, dark fruit, bitter coffee, a little hops (but just enough to balance things out), dark chocolate and hot cocoa. Very mocha-like, but a little metallic and artificial in the finish. The full body was a little oily, but really fairly creamy and also a little sticky on the lips with fizzy carbonation and a lightly astringent and slightly metallic finish.