Shorts Imperial Carob Stout

Brewed by Shorts Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial Stout
Bellaire, Michigan USA

Heavy spicy aroma. Average frothy, light brown head. Clear, dark amber body. Heavy spicy flavor, and a long finish duration.

Bottle. Black colour with large creamy light brown mostly lasting head. Aroma is roasted malt. Bitter flavor with notes of coffee.

RB US#1000: 75 cL bottle. Pours pitch black with a fully diminished tan head. Smooth choclate malty aroma. Dry chocolate malty flavoured. Smooth flavoured with a mild vanilla and dry and slight acidic roasted malt and chocolate finish.

750mL. Savory barbeque, warm chocolate chip cookie, some dough and definitely that dry, dusty carob nature. Pours in a dark, dark mahogany with toasted chestnut fringes and a rim in white. Dry, simply and lightly licorice-like roast. Heavy on the roast. Harshly roasted and dry, charred. And the sugars and alcohol don’t seem to smooth that effect at all. Passable. Dry and with a unique twist of carob, but nothing overly excelling the style. The roast and char gets a little coarse at times. Otherwise, enjoyable and nice on a cold, snowy night.

(Bottle 75 cl) Pours a warm reddish brown with a light brown head. Burned malty aroma with some vanilla. Quite full-bodied with distinct burned malty notes and ashes combined with a strange unclean edge. Extreme malt astringency in the finish. 311008

Bottle. Creamy lightbrown excellent fully lasting head. <<<dsrk red-amber colour. Moderate malty and hoppy nice aroma. Heavy bitter very roasted aroma. Long nice finish. Creamy palate.

Bottle. Almost black colour with a medium beige creamy head. Pretty standard impy stout with notes of rum. Good beer.

The beer pours into my 25cl tulip glass with an opaque black color and a thin, brown-tinged, tan colored head. The aroma is a mix of chocolate notes, richly fruity / molasses-like rum notes with lots of roast coffee aromatics and a deep, toasted grain note towards the finish. Rich, expressive dark chocolate notes play a big role here as does a big, darkly, almost burnt, whole grain toast character. As the beer warms up I get a nice mix of dark fruit aromatics, Rum-character, Brandy-like notes and a solid, burnt raisin note. This has a nice, fairly complex nose to it.

Roast flavors dominate in the mouth much more than they did in the aroma. This has a bitter, blackened, leaning towards charcoal, grain note to it in the finish as well as a lingering, toasted, whole grain note. This has quite a bit of astringency in the mouthfeel from all the roast grain, but it is fairly rich, which helps to mitigate this just a bit.

This started out pretty interesting; the aroma is much more expressive and complex than the flavor is. The flavor comes off a bit too harsh, though it is still reasonably tasty.