Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Formerly brewed at Stone Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial Stout
Escondido, California USA

This was extremely good. Nice bitter, roasted malt flavor with some smoke, oatmeal, dark chocolate, and bitter espresso with a bitter but almost creamy-smooth mouthfeel. Wish this was a year-round beer. YUM.

Thanks to SouthbayD&L for this beer. Pitch black pour with thin dark coffee head. Chocolate, malted milk balls and raisin. Roasted flavors up front with espresso and cocoa in the middle, with and bitter coffee near the end. Oily mouthfeel, with a bit of heat on the finish as well.

Draft at Brouwers.

Pitch black, tan head -- pretty beer. Flavor is black cherry ice cream with dark chocolate chocolate chips. End of story. Nice thick mouthfeel; a lot better than I expected. Wish I had a bottle or two sitting around.

On tap @ Stone Release Party at Oldsmar Tap House. Wow. Not what I expected, but still damn good. Poured a dark black with an aroma of bitter coffee and dark chocolate. Flavor is lots of bitter with chocolate and malty flavors. Finish is bitter with some lingering chocolate maltiness. Better from the tap.

Bottle from South Bay Drugs and Liquor. Aroma gives off a pleasant and delighting chocolate olfaction as well as lightly roast malt. The stout creates a firm layer of beige colored foam while a pitch black fluid is waiting to be consumed. The initial flavor is pure roasted dark malt with only a slight hint to chocolate but it’s clearly obvious cocoa is the strong backbone to this stout. Texture is rich and creamy with a minor tingle sensation from very refined carbonation bubbles. The presence of alcohol is noticeable even when served at a cold temperature. Aftertaste is sweet and leaves behind a taste as if I just ate a chocolate bar. Overall, I’m glad Stone decided to release an anniversary since they announced early this year they wouldn’t.

Bottle. Pours black, opaque, with medium tan head. Aroma is chocolate, roast malts. Flavor is bitter from roasted malt, slightly sweet, smoke, black currants, lighter flavor than I would expect.

Pours dark, dark brown out of the bottle and settles in as a nice pitch black in the glass. Head is dense and mocha-colored and fades fairly quickly leaving only a trace of lacing. Aroma is of dark chocolate and burnt/roasted malts. There are also some dark fruits and alcohol burn in the nose as well. Taste is big on the sweet malts as well with the significant bitterness of the baker’s chocolate. The mouthfeel is medium bodied and has a little carbonation on top of the bitterness of the chocolate. This is a decent, but quite bitter, stout and the flavors are are a little too abrasive for me. This one could use some time to bring the flavors together.

Draft. Gravity Head 2009 "The Liver Olympics." Opaque black body with an enticing, frothy, brown head that slowly recedes. Malty aroma of roasted malts, chocolate, coffee with notes of alcohol and a hint of plastic, but not enough to be off-putting. The flavor is moderately to heavily sweet and moderately bitter, especially in the finish where it turns heavily bitter. It leaves tastes of bitter coffee and chocolate (more bitter than chocolate) and burnt malts and, finally some plastic. Medium to full body with a slick texture and lively carbonation. The beer did not wow me, but I did enjoy it.