Oggis Black Magic Stout

Brewed by Left Coast/Oggis Pizza and Brewing Company
Style: Foreign Stout
Del Mar, California USA

Bottle. Pours a black pour, big cloudy tan fluffy head, creamy lacing. Roasted notes in the nose, spicy, some coffee and cocoa. Roasted chocolate flavors, syrupy flow, coffee in finish, and honey. Crisp, drinkable, refreshing, full of life and full-bodied.

Bottle (22oz). Shared by blankboy with me and tupalev. As Black Magic Stout / Left Coast. Black pour, huge fluffy lasting tan head. Dry, deep roast oily aroma, definitely molasses and heavy coffee. Tastes of coffee and roasted nutshell, but a lot of wheat and light herbal bitterness takes over, moderate alcohol, still dry and somehow "darkly" fruity. Light, oily body/mouthfeel, oddly quick finishing, not quite as sweet or thick as I was expecting, but nice, dry, and drinkable.

This dark brown ale poured with a foamy tan head and a nice malt aroma. The flavor is roasted malt with some chocolate and a slightly sour soapy aftertaste.

A luscious, silky cabernet-red pour produces chocolate brown body, topped with espresso froth, deep tan and metallic-hued. Aroma is dry sweetness; baking chocolate, mostly, with an underlying hint of mint and sumatran dark roast grounds. A deep toastiness removes it somewhat from the realm of plain sweetened coffee, if only slightly and momentarily, before a further gratifying smoothness of vinous and white fruit characters emerges; red apples, white grapes, and unripe mango; all still powdered in mint, and lacquered in a passable lactic sweetness. That impression mingles obnoxiously with the persistent coffee presence, and rather ruins it; I’m speaking as someone who loves the pure coffee flavors that malts generally can achieve on their own without the meddlesome additions of cold-press or grounds, and this would be an excellent example of that purity if not for the needless cutting sweetness of the lactic flavor. It’s got a lot of character, though.

Taste is noticeably simpler. It’s like a mexican mocha made with too much sugar, stale grounds, and too much milk. The cinnamon sweetness is rather forward, along with the plain crunch of white sugar, and only a light bitterness of wooden espresso. The fruit character evident in the nose seems more a stark greenness, fresh and rubbery with fruit rind texture, somewhat like raw cocoa beans and the skin of green pears. The old coffee flavor is persistent, and especially highlighted by the equally present and dried out lactic sweetness, and a forthcoming mineral sensation; still , the malts prevail, and all those dead-end flavor characteristics get swallowed up; the beer arrives at a place that’s more pure roast and soft sweetness than astringency. This is a big surprise, and still impressive even if it’s not completely convincing.

Yeast pour brings the deeper fruits, and it opens itself up warmly.

Silky and just short of full palate; the texture of metallic coffee grounds tends to groan a bit still, even if the flavor somehow lays low; finishes with a pulsating fruitiness of figs and cranberries, and again drying out on baker’s chocolate and lactic sweetness, and finally getting a bit doughy in the last smack. There’s no shortage of flavors here that I really don’t like, but they’re so unusually reticent, and the beer really pulls itself together admirably. Thanks to both Joshua and Steve for the extra bottles!

22 oz bomber from a trade made long ago. Pours a dark black with an average size light beige head. Aroma was roasty and sweet with notes of freeze dried coffee and chocolate. Medium bodied with a creamy mouthfeel and light carbonation. Flavor was sweet but with an acidic touch to it that left behind notes of coffee beans and chocolate. Solid beer and was enjoyable.

GABF 2007. A pitch black beer with a thin brown head. The aroma is sweet malty with strong notes of chocolate. The flavor is sweet malty with strong notes of chocolate and cocoa beans, leading to a dry bitter finish.

Poured like sweet mo-lassess from the bottle and wreaked of alcohol. Both are readily apparent on the pallete as well along with a taste of coffee. Tasty, but not a very memorable (let alone distinctive) stout.

Very nice stout, very dark of course. Smelled very roasty, dark roasty flavor as well. From Apr. 27 08’