Monday night, and baby, it's cold outside. Perfect night for a lovely stout that is new-ish to Ohio. Clown Shoes is out of Massachusetts, and we were lucky enough to pick some up before we could get it here. Then, one day this fall, they decided to open distribution to Ohio. We wholeheartedly approve of this decision, and this is our first in-state purchase from them.
Back in the early spring, we actually had a date night and went out to the movies (shocking, I know. It just doesn't happen as much as it should). Our favorite movie theater has an excellent selection of craft beers, and I tried a New Holland brew that blew me away. Called Ocho Mole, it was a Mexican-spiced stout. I have similar expectations to that for this brew.
This pours a deep brown-black with some pillowy khaki head. Taking a whiff, I pick up notes of toasted malts, chocolate, vanilla beans, a hint of ancho chili, and maybe come cinnamon. Taking a drink, it's a very interesting brew. The roasted malts hit first along with a lot of chocolate, then vanilla and cinnamon kick in, and at the very back note of the palate, there's just the teensiest hint of the ancho chili. I love ancho chilies (they're merely smoked poblanos), so this is a welcome note to the flavor profile. They're a milder pepper, so this is not one that's going to burn going down. It's pretty thin in body, and that is my biggest complaint about this beer. But it clocks in a 9% ABV, so my toes are finally starting to thaw out. There really isn't a boozy quality to this beer for being such a high-ABV beast, but I like that.
It's a pretty solid brew, and one I wouldn't mind having again. I'm looking forward to trying some of their IPAs.
4.1/5 caps
-Jennie
The movie theater she's referring to is Studio 35 (on Indianola just North of Weber Road), if you haven't been there, go. We went with some friends to watch The Evil Dead on opening weekend. Awesome movie, amazing beer selections. As those memories start to fade away with the passing days and the increasing alcohol consumption, we find ourselves at this current moment, sitting in front of a computer, pint glass in hand, and a beer review to do. Damn that was a long sentence.
While Jennie took lead on this, I cleaned up the kitchen, giving this a chance to warm up. This poured a dark, typical stout color with a very fluffy tan head, which after 20 minutes or so is still about a half-finger. Toasted malts, chocolate and vanilla taunt my olfactory senses when I raise this to my nose. Some hints of toffee, smokiness and caramel, but mostly the prior 3 mentioned. It seems interesting enough from the aroma, let's delve into the taste. Roasted malts assault the taste buds initially, with hints of chocolate and vanilla. The smokiness isn't noticed, but there's some warm chili pepper qualities to the back end, not enough to be spicy (as Jennie mentioned they're smoked poblano), but enough to give it notice. As I just was drinking a Burger Classic, I can compare the body to about that. It's deceptively thin on this beer. I figured a 9% ABV stout would be a rich, thick body (ala Stone Espresso), but apparently this is a Decepticon. The thinner body makes it very drinkable, and this higher alcohol content makes it so you just start to drift off in your own world, researching different things that you've written over the past year, trying to figure out what spurred better creativity then than what you've been feeling as of late. Then you realize you're rambling to people who probably haven't made it this far, so you continue to type and see if anyone really reads this. But the lack of feedback received makes you wonder if this is all in vain, which is why you should follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And then you start to realize this stream-of-conscious writing delves way too far into your own personal psyche at times to where inner demons have come out in previous posts that you realize you probably shouldn't send a link to, making the reader search through your 200-some-odd posts in order to find it if they're truly interested in reading. Then you realize you're rambling.
4/5 caps
-Nathan-
No comments:
Post a Comment