Southern Tier Choklat

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Lakewood, New York USA

as mokah only has 7 ratings as of today, i am in the rare position of having tried that before this beer. and in summation, cutting this beer with jah-va was a bright idea. i came up with a few chcoclate analogies last night on mokah, and here they are just outrageous. this is to imperial stouts as NG belgian red is to fruit beers, and i am a fan of neither. i am however an ST fan, but there is no way this is their best beer. this is quite one dimensional: smells like chocolate (and little else), and flavor is barely balanced with a touch of roast and very mild (in comparison to the overwhelming cocoa notes) bitterness. all of this being said, this is a quite drinkable 11% which gives it some points back. it looks quite like chocolate milk as well, with a filthy stained brown head. mouthfeel is well, again chocolate: silky and full, very soft and thick. this makes me long for a very bitter heavily roasted imperial stout without this mess. just like the creme brulee stout, its hard to continue after a taste. i will trudge on, but never again.

Thanks daknole. Pours black-brown with a modest beige head, no lace. Sweet chocolate aroma like tootsie roll candy. Flavor combines chocolate syrup sweetness with bitter roasted, almost burnt malt elements. Very full bodied on the palate, mild carbonation.

#24 Bottle. [Papsoe grand American tasting] Small bubbly off-white head that mostly diminished. Spare display of lacework. Dark mahogany color. Aroma of heavy chocolate, mild roasted malt and coffee. Over the palate came heavy roasted notes and bitter chocolate. Full bodied with a soft carbonation. Heavy sweet and bitter flavor. Lingering bitter chocolate. 7 / 3 / 8 / 3 / 16 = 3.7

From bottle, Papsoes blindtasting #24. Pours deep dark brown to black with a small tan head. Dense dark and powdery chocolate aroma. Sweet and dense chocolate flavoured, vanilla too. Powderish. Mild bitter and roasted acidic flavoured too. Bitter and slight acidic finish.

Appearance – Pours a dark, dark brown. When held up to the light, the light starts to penetrate the glass, but only around the edges. A beautiful looking light cappuccino brown head about 1 finger emerges from the dark liquid. After the head recedes quickly, a good amount of foam clings to the edges of the glass with a spiderweb of thin bubbles lacing the top of the brew. Smell – With a swirl of the snifter comes some more bubbling head, and with it, Hershey’s Syrup. Yup, lots of Hershey’s Syrup. There is some beer in there too, mostly in the form of dark roasted malt and caramel. I get a faint hint of hops in there too. Overall, a different but exciting smell from this concoction. Taste – There is the chocolate that the name of this beer implies. Lots of chocolate mixed with caramel and a little bit of hop sting. After some time the chocolate starts to secede and become less pronounced. I guess you could say as it warms up it balances itself out and becomes more of a beer. The roasted malts become more pronounced after it warms up as well. Starting to get a little bit of a coffee taste as well. Mouthfeel – Mouthfeel is very light for an imperial stout. This feels more like a regular stout. I think that if this was thicker, it would complement the chocolate notes a lot more. Drinkability – I almost wish I would have left this in the fridge longer. That really pronounced chocolate taste in the beginning was phenomenal in this beer. It tasted exactly like Hershey’s Syrup, and apparently that was exactly what I wanted at the time. If I kept this real cold, I could drink it all night long and pour it on some vanilla ice cream and gobble it up!

22oz bottle. Like liquid chocolate. Perhaps the most chocolaty of all the chocolate stouts I have tried. Very well done. I’m not sure which one I like better, this or the slightly less sweet, more bitter Southern Tier Jah-va. Update 5/1/08: Knocking it down a couple points after another tasting due to the extreme sweetness. May be too much chocolate flavor for it’s own good.

I cellared a bottle of Choklat since Christmas, opened while homebrewing. Dark chocolate leaps out the entire time drinking this Imperial Stout. Smooth, silky seamless blend hop & chocolate bitterness. I took my time consuming the bomber of Choklat, and it was delicious.

Bottle from Malt & Vine. Pours a nice dark black with good head. A bit thick, but the amazing chocolate taste with hints of vanilla reminds me of a tootsie roll. Alcohol is hidden well. Definitely an incredible stout.