Pike XXXXX Stout

Brewed by Pike Pub & Brewery
Style: Stout
Seattle, Washington USA

A rich dark chocolate aroma. Flavor is almost oatmeal stout thick. Chewy chocolate. Roasty but quite good in small amounts.

Draught sampler at the brewpub. Deep brown-black with ruby tints and a drak tan head. Aroma and flavour are big and roasty, with a lot of coffee, and hints of molasses and smoke, with a dryish finish that’s kinda like chewing on a coffee bean. Great mouthfeel. A very fine stout!

12 oz bottle, 05-06 vintage, via acertain. Pours a thick black, almost motor oil in color. Small but attractive chocolate brown head that faded to a thin ring quickly. Aroma is burnt, roasted, and chocolate malts, raisons, coffee, a touch of alcohol, and a dry yeast character. Flavor is burnt malt, coffee, and chocolate. Finish is very dry with a little astringency and bitterness. Very good length to the finish. Full bodied with an oily texture up front fading to a drying finish. Minimal fine bubbled carbonation. A pretty awesome beer, very near the top of the heap for regular stouts.

12oz bottle 2005-2006 release via trade with Indiana_Red - Thanks Ken! - Gushed out of the bottle when the cap was popped. Poured thick black with a big mocha head that fades pretty quick. Big aroma of coffee. molasses, and some baker’s chocolate. Flavor is nice coffee, and baker’s chocolate with a touch of molasses and nuts. Nice dry finish. Palate is full bodied but very smooth and drinkable. Nice dry finish makes this seem more like a dry stout. Lots of burnt flavor throughout. Very interesting and quite tasty.

22oz bottle, courtesy of a trade from a while ago. Thanks! Pours a dense, dark chocolate-brown color; dark tan head with solid retention and fine-bubbled lacing. Lots of cocoa, dark chocolate, and roasted / charred malts in the aroma; dense and chewy without being overly sweet. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: lots of chewy milk chocolate and cocoa; solid malt core with a lot of complexity (nougat, caramel, dried fruits even); maintains its dryness pretty well throughout; hard to imagine drinking a ton of this, but I just ate a ton of Chinese food, so it’s hard to say. Lengthy, dark chocolate and roasted malts and cocoa in the finish; sweeter than elsewhere.

A solid pour produces a cresting, almost four-finger thick, rich, creamed chocolate brown colored head in my 25cl tulip glass. The head leaves lots of sticky lacing as it slowly recedes. The beer is just about perfectly black and doesn’t pass any light no matter how close I hold it up to my desk lamp. Sharply acidic roast notes mix with a rich cocoa aroma up front. Other aromatic notes of salty smoked peat, burnt toffee, a rich toasted grain base, a concentrated cocoa note and an almost meaty rich malt driven note that I can’t quite pinpoint (lots of Maillard browning and an umami effect), but it really boosts the richness of the aroma and provides a substantial foil to the up front burnt acidity.

Lightly sweet, but significantly rich, towards the middle the roast malt provides an acidity and dry burnt flavor that almost drowns out the malt sweetness, but in the finish the malt sweetness makes a comeback. Ultimately this beer finishes dry as a sharp, softly acid, burnt bitter roast character is what ends up lingering on the palate. Burnt, dark chocolate notes envelope the tongue for a time as the malt sweetness lingers and this beer has a certain velvet-like texture that helps boost the chocolate notes as well. This really is pretty thick and rich (especially for a beer of 6.6% abv), it is quite chewy, though the burnt, acidic, slightly acrid, roast malt definitely cuts through the richness a fair amount. Lingering in the finish is also a significant hop bitterness that couples with the roast bitterness. As the beer warms I begin to notice an almost salty, smoky character to this beer.

Despite being so roast dominated (and by this I mean the sharper, harsher notes), I am really enjoying this beer, there is enough other rich, offsetting / balancing flavors that this beer is just quite enjoyable. Just a fantastic, rich, stout that isn’t too strong; in fact it is much richer than its alcohol might suggest and this is actually quite nice.

Purchased: Liquid Solutions

Bottle. Pours a deep, dark black with a beige head. Aroma is slight chocolate coffee bean. Flavor is bitter chocolate and powdered chocolate coffee bean. Nice, full mouthfeel. Very enjoyable stout.

Black Coloring with Tan Head. HEavy Load of Sweet/Dry Barley. Pretty Crazy Tasting Stout. Really Sweet Barley Taste That Quickly Becomes Bitter and Dry at the End. Syrapy Mouthfeel. Really Tasty but Wimper at the Thought of Having Another.