Nørrebro La Granja Stout

Brewed by Nørrebro Bryghus
Style: Sweet Stout
København, Denmark

Sweet, delicious aroma of roasted malts, coffee and milk chocolate. Smooth, roasted and burnt malty flavor with coffee, milk chocolate, caramel and nice hoppy finish.

600 ml bottle. Pours a blackish-brown color with a thick tan head. Sweet aroma with coffee and dark malts. Sweet taste of chocolate and coffee with a nice hoppy background. Well-balanced aftertaste, pretty heavy carbonation and medium body. Pretty good and quite distinctive.

(600 ml bottle from <A HREF=http://www.ratebeer.com/Place/massachusetts/w target=blank>Julio’s Liquors) Pours very dark brown with rubyish brown highlights. Three fingers of lumpyish tan head. Head is quite active for a stout - large bubbles form in it as it rather quickly recedes - looks like molten lava. Head is pretty much gone rather quickly. Unexpectedly very mild aroma of milk chocolate and a little bit of coffee with cream. Mouthfeel is also surprisingly thin and a bit fizzy but fairly smooth. No lacing. Flavor is rather rich coffee with cream, a bit of chocolate and a subtle roasty dark rum/molasses/honey quality reminiscent of their excellent porter. This latter quality is more evident deeper in the bottle and as it warms. Virtually no bitterness. Interesting stuff - very different from an American stout.

Bottle of La Granja Espresso Stout. . .I assume this is the right place to rate this. Pours slick, near black, and makes a small tan head that only lasts for 10 seconds or so. The aroma is nice with things I normally associate with imperial stouts: licorice, molasses, dark fruit. Now, where is the coffee? The coffee suggestions are meager and not really genuine. Palate is medium heavy. The majority of the flavor profile on this one is quite nice: more licorice, some dark fruit, hints of rum, light cream. There is something in the finish that is off putting. I’ve found this in some other Danish or Norwegian stouts, not quite sure how to describe it. There is also a slight tart thing going on. Not bad, but it seems rough around the edges. And where is the coffee?? It says "espresso stout" in giant letters on the label, definitely doesn’t live up to that.

Courtesy SoLan. Pours an extremely dark mahogany color with a small, frothy, khaki colored head. Scant traces of jagged lacing mark the glass. Aromatics are sweet and roasty, with notes of burnt sugar, coffee, hazelnut liquor, caramel, and cream. Flavors basically follow suit, with mocha cream, dark sugars, caramel, and a faint hint of earthy hops making for a well integrated blend. Judging by the sticky film that the medium-full body leaves behind, it gets most of its substance from the sugar, which is a bit of a disappointment. This feels very much like a dessert beer, in every possible facet. This might be great when poured atop vanilla ice cream.

Pours like a cola into a snifter. No head whatsoever. Chocolate and espresso aromas. Tingly upfront but thin with a lasting espresso finish. Must be a bad bottle...everyone is talking about this beer having a head, and I could not get anything after a vigorous pour...

This is indeed a very sweet stout. Pours a dark brown with a thin tan head. Nice aroma of coffee and some chocolate. Creamy/oily mouthfeel. The chocolate really takes over and it is a very sweet beer with just a little bit of a bitter finish. Nice coffee...I liked this beer a lot.

Bottle 0.6 l. Dark brown, beigish light brown head. Roast, bitter chocolate, coffee on nose. Flavor is slightly sour, roasted, bitterish, stale espresso and a bit flat. Not that appetizing. A bit thin to my liking. Not bad, but nothing really spectacular either.