Jolly Pumpkin Madrugada Obscura

Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Style: Stout
Dexter, Michigan USA

Sample at the Eurostash II tasting on 12/12/09: Batch 266 courtesy of Rogueone. After 1/4 of the bottle was lost to a geyser, the beer is black with a thick tan head that takes a long time to diminish. Sticky patches of lacing on the glass. Smokey and roasty aroma with notes of chocolate. Medium, smooth body with an ashtray character that has smoked malt and mild chocolate underneath. The finish is all smoke with a bit of hops left over. Overall this beer is too far over the cliff in terms of the smoke to be truly enjoyable to me.

Bottle sample of Batch 266 as an intermission beer at Dogbrick’s Eurostash II tasting on 12/12/09. Gusher bottle pours black with a huge light brown head. Roasty nose with chocolate, that unmistakable JP yeast and some green olive. Malty and roasty flavor with chocolate, smoke and a tart finish. Decent for the style, but I’m still trying to develop a taste for the Belgian stout category.

Pours nearly black with a ridiculously large head...had to quell my pour just to keep this one in check, and it took a while for things to subside. Aroma is somewhat muted for a JP beer, but there’s a bit of funk sitting in the background...otherwise a generally roasty feel. Flavor is intriguing...very stout-like up front...roasted malts, underlying sweetness, but has the typical JP funk that ends up dominating. Slight bit of lemony note at the end, and you pucker as this one ends...interesting beer. A sipper for the style, but not bad overall. Don’t think I’d run to this one again, due to the price and my preference for other beers from the brewer, but that does not make this one bad in the least.

Big time gusher and hard to pour because of all the carb. The carb makes the beer have a beautiful, long lasting tan head. Nose is a funky chocolate, like you ate a candy bar while cleaning some musty laundry. It’s interesting, and the taste mostly follows the nose, but it’s just too sour. The chocolate up front lasts for a few seconds on the tongue, but then the beer just explodes with sourness, and it’s not the tasty kind. An absurdly confusing beer: hard to drink lots of due to the flavor assault, it hides the 8.1% alcohol as well as any beer I’ve had since I first tried PtE. Worth trying once, but too expensive to merit a rebuy.

11th September 2008. Very frothy stout. Lots of toasty malt well offset by that typical Jolly Pumpkin sourness. Hint of smoke in the mid. The sourness had a fruity edge which also delivers a breif sweet note. Some chocolate in there too. Complex and drinkable.

Bottle from Crown#6 Batch 360/362, shared with Brother Eric. CAUTION! Open over the sink, just in case. Apparently something was living inside and wanted to come out quick. Foam snaked out of this bottle for 3 minutes straight while I cleaned up the mess. Pours pitchass black with no sign of daylight and monstrous 1.5" bubbly tan head. Nose is an odd sour belgian yeast covering brown sugar and molasses. Flavor is sour, dry, barnyard funk with roasted malt. Really odd and different. A sour stout? Not at all what I was expecting, though I’m not really sure what I was expecting anymore. Finish is earthy and rough with a brett feel to it. Two thumbs up for variety, but that’s being generous. I’m not sure I’ll revisit.

Bottle. Pours a black color with a samll off-white head. Has roasted malty chocolate and coffee aroma. Fruity and slightly tart chocolate and molasses flavor with some weak hints of coffee. Has a roasted fruity and slightly tart chocolate finish.

Batch 360/362, brewed in November 2008. Black body is topped with a mountainous head that is both frothy and creamy. The glass has been wrecked with sticky looking lace and the head remains like a lumpy cloud bank. The aroma is predominantly sour oak barrels that once held a robust wine, also with currants, old leaves black with rot, lots of bacterial influence, big coffee, molasses, faint esters, chocolate notes. Medium-bodied with plentiful, coarse carbonation and a dry finish. The flavor is sour from bacteria, oaky, sweet with wine, esters, roasted grains, lots of chocolate on the tail end, big coffee flavor, molasses, sour/bitter finish that fades to bitter, woody, and well-hopped. Alcohol is practically invisible. Complex, off-beat. Contains sulfites.