Southern Tier Imperial Choklat Stout
We first encountered Southern Tier’s Imperial Choklat Stout last winter when we happened upon it in a shop. Erin couldn’t resist the concept of a chocolate stout and so we grabbed a bottle. Our interest was heightened while checking out, when the clerk looked at the bottle and said, “This. Beer. Is. Freaking. Amazing.” (periods included to indicate the dramatic emphasis he used). And sure enough, the beer was pretty amazing. It was the most chocolatey tasting beer I’d ever drunk before, with both the nose and the palate just absolutely packed full of chocolate flavor. I later had it on tap a couple of times and was just as amazed by it both times.
But the beer is seasonal, part of Southern Tier’s Blackwater Series of big, unique imperial stouts. Other beers in the series have included an imperial coffee stout (very good), a creme brulee imperial milk stout (very strange, very sweet), and an oat imperial stout. On the whole I’ve found Southern Tier’s beers across the board to be ok. They’re inventive and unique and I give them credit for that. And as the imperial choklat stout and imperial coffee stout show, they really strike gold sometimes. But most of the beers I’ve had have been a bit too far in left field for my palate, or simply not that interesting. Either way, both Erin and I were highly anticipating the re-release of this beer. And so it was with some excitement that we headed to the shop once we’d heard that it had been re-released this past month.
I have to admit that I do like Southern Tier’s packaging of their special series beers, where they include info about the malts, hops, and other ingredients used, the original gravity, and even the color rating. Great stuff for an anorak such as myself. The Imperial Choklat Stout is brewed to an original gravity of 27-degrees Plato, roughly 1.115 in gravity units. Seriously high starting gravity, can you imagine how much yeast they have to pitch?! The chocolate used is bittersweet belgian chocolate. Chinook and Willamette hops are used, and the malts are to be expected: 2-row, caramel 60, and chocolate malt. But what really grabbed me was that original gravity. Coupled with the 11% ABV, this promised a beer that would offer some great viscosity on the palate.
So with some excitement we popped open the bottle tonight. Does the beer live up to expectations born of last year’s batch?
The beer is jet black, with very slight ruby highlights at the rim. The nose is intensely chocolate. In fact, after pouring it and leaving it sitting on my desk next to me for about 5 minutes, the scent of chocolate has filled the room. The chocolate smell is of the cocoa variety as opposed to the smell of bittersweet chocolate. And the nose is all chocolate, all the time, not much else comes through – not that I’m complaining. The first flavor that comes through on the palate is the bittersweet chocolate. That is quickly replaced by the distinct bitterness of roasted malts, almost as though someone was making hot chocolate on the stove and burned a little bit. This flavor sort of flashes on the palate, dulling the bittersweet chocolate somewhat and altering it to more of a cocoa-powder flavor. Slowly, the palate gives way to a finish that is at once both chocolate and bitter roast. The beer is not as voluptuously chocolaty as I remember being last year, but still quite good.
In fact, I find the finish to be quite similar to the flavor left in your mouth after eating a chocolate that has a very high percentage of cocoa, say 80% or more. While some chocolate sweetness remains, it is always countered by a degree of bitterness that can be quite high. It is a combination that doesn’t so much taint the experience, but illuminates another facet of the chocolate flavor. Because let’s face it, chocolate is produced through first roasting the cocoa beans. And following that, the chocolate maker’s determination of how much sugar and cocoa-butter to add to the finished product. The higher the cocoa percentage, the greater the sense of bitterness that you will experience. This beer works very similarly.
Whether that is a flaw or not is debatable. It would be nice if the finish trailed off into sweetly chocolate notes, but in some way I think this finish is more true to the ingredients used.
In sum, this beer is a must try. I think everyone should go out and grab a bottle of this and open it on a cold winter evening. The chocolate experience in this beer remains the most astounding to me of any chocolate beers I’ve yet tried.
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