Nørrebro La Granja Stout

Brewed by Nørrebro Bryghus
Style: Sweet Stout
København, Denmark

My wifes favourite beer! Lots of everything - coffee, liquorice, chocolate - smoooth, well balanced - a lady-pleaser...and I love it.

Black with short lasting brown head. Aroma is packed with coffe and roasted malt. Sweet flavor with bitter coffee, hard roasted malt and chocolate notes. Ends bitter.

600ml Bottle: Aroma of roasting, malts, chocolate, herbs, and coffee. Poured black in color with a medium-sized, rocky brown head that diminished slowly. Opaque. Flavor is medium sweet and lightly bitter. Tastes of dark malts, roasting, chocolate, coffee, burnt licorice, and a bit of smoke. Medium body. Chalky texture. Soft carbonation. Sweet, malty ,chalky finish. I was expecting better.

(Bottled) Very dark brown color with a smallish, quickly and completely vanishing, beige head. Roasty-ashy-malty aroma with coffee, cocoa, hints of licorice, and lactic sweetness. Roasty and very lactic-sweet flavor with some hop bitterness, and smooth licorice. No alcohol presence at all. Silky-smooth, medium to full-bodied palate with low carbonation. This is a very smooth and excellently balanced stout, almost like the A.Le Coq Jõuluporter I used to love when it was sold here in Finland. Now, only one question remains: is it too smooth and safe to be interesting? In either case, I must give the brewery credit for its excellent balance and drinkability.

Bottle from Belmont Station. Pours a very dark, rich black. Brown beer foam with low retention and no lacing. Aroma of chocolate, vanilla, sherry, espresso and some dark fruit. The taste is very similar with the sherry note coming through in the finish. This bottle seems a bit still. The perception might be very different and less "winey" if the carbonation were normal. Not bad but expected more for the price..$15 a bottle.

Bottle from Capone’s. Deep blackish with turbidity and deep brown edges and ta head. The aroma is roasty patent malt, molasses, chocolate, some spicy hops. The cacao remains in the flavor, coupled with roasty malt, and it stays on the semi-sweet side, with a molasses kick as it warms. Decent complexity and well hidden alcohol make this one a great stout.

Bottle into pint, purchased at Discount, Milwaukee. Pours with a very unenergetic head that fully dissipates. Hard and thin cocoa roastiness with maybe a hint of coffee grounds on the nose, doesn’t promise much in the way of mouthfeel. Just kind of blah in the mouth; uninspiring. The sweetness is very much in check, just a counterpoint to the roastiness in the bitter finish, which intensifies over time. Begins kind of flaccid and soggy, not robust at all; never gets intense, but does dry out quite a bit in a surge of bitterness; toward the end, there’s a chemical astringency that seems like it’s making the surface of my tongue shrivel a little bit. Not really a fan; I’ll take Hitachino Nest over this any day.

What looks to be lightly cloudy brown liquid with a moderate tan colored head. Dark acidic roast coffee aromas with a touch of toasted malt and a hint of dark chocolate. Smooth and lightly silky on the palate. Lightly roasted malt start with hints of coffee, sweetened with heavy cream. The cream carries well into the finish where a mild lactose and coconut milk flavor kicks in. Fairly dry and leaning toward boring in the linger. This comes off as a very simple and easy to drink kind of brew. I would say that its strength is in it simplicity.