Thunderhead Cornstalker Espresso Stout

Brewed by Thunderhead Brewing Company
Style: Stout
Kearney, Nebraska USA

[At GABF 2004] An opaque brown beer with a small orange head. The aroma is of roasted coffee - lovely. The flavor is sweet and very coffeeish combined with notes of chocolate, which reminds me of a cappuchino. But the end is dry and roasted - so it is not cappuchino all the way.

tap at Yia Yia’s, Lincoln. I was stoked to see this make an appearance in Lincoln...Big coffee beer...I’m not a coffee drinker, but I like this coffee flavor...the beer is a bit thin and plain, leaving the coffee as the dominant character...but its a rare day when I can support a Nebraska brewery that is actually TRYING to make beer that is out of the ordinary.
Earlier Rating: 2/20/2005 Total Score: 3.7
Tap at brewpub. hint of chocolate in the nose but mostly ROASTED COFFEE!!! if you love coffee, this is for you. Body is medium, very roasty and you can almost taste the grounds...probably the best beer I had here today.

2004 GABF, Denver. If only this lived up to its smell. If they could make potpourri from this aroma, I might actually buy it. As it is, the beer is thin, uncomplex, and tastes stale. Maybe it was a bad batch. If you’re going to advertise a beer as an Espresso Stout, you should have some roast character. It should actually be roastier than just plain stouts, which taste vaguely of coffee already.

GABF 2004: Pours a roasty dark brown color with a nice tan head. Aroma is almost exclusively pure roasted coffee, and maybe a hint of black patent malt. Body is kinda thin and dry, that could benefit from some more sweetness and balance. Finishes very dry and bitter with lingering burnt coffee notes without much complexity.

Dark brown body with some light passing through. Large white/tan head with some light lacing. Heavy espresso aroma without so much of a stout character... semi-sweet to the lips, some sugary orange and smoky dark chocolate with loads of espresso flavors. Fresh, thick, and bitter in the end.

GABF 2004. Opaque black body and a velvety tan head. Fantastic, creamy espresso nose and a deep roasted charcoal quality that fits in very nicely. Intense fresh espresso quality and light acidity. Full, robust body. I could add milk to this and drink it for breakfast everyday. Totally dominant coffee quality but I loved this.

On tap at the Crescent Moon Alehouse. Aroma of a just-opened vacuum brick of Folgers. Yellow-brown head atop a black ale with excellent head retention and lace. As the aroma, the flavor is all coffee. In fact, too much coffee for my tastes, but then again, I’m a beer drinker, not a coffee drinker. The roasted flavor that I need in a stout is overpowered by the coffee flavor. However, I acknowledge that some "experts" might find this to be quite appealing for the sub-style. The magical part to this is that I find the stout to be quite sweet! I don’t think this is defined as a sweet stout, so this was a surprising attempt at taste balance. This is amazingly not the only espresso stout brewed in Nebraska (re: Spilker Brewing XPO Espresso Stout). What’s up with these caffeinated Nebraskans?