AleSmith Speedway Stout

Brewed by AleSmith Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
San Diego, California USA

black pour with tan smallish head, nice lacing; strong aroma of roast coffee, chocolate, dark malts and mocha. Flavor to match. Tastes like expresso with ten packets of sugar. Nice creamy finish. Hiides alcohol well.

courtesy of bhops. black pour with an espresso head. roasted malts, coffee, chocolate and an underlying tone of toffee. very smooth on the palate with a big coffee flavor that finished with chocolate that coats the mouth.

On cask at PP Real Ale Festival. Pours black with a thin, crisp, brown head. Smells dark and roasty and then of sweet coffee. Tastes dark and roasty and then dark, semi-sweet coffee. Tastes very good, the coffee is not overpowering. Full bodied, good carbonation.
Earlier Rating: 12/26/2007 Total Score: 4.3
Not as much coffee on the nose as I remember. A bit of coffee and a good amount of dark, toasty malts. A hint of alcohol. Pours almost completely black with just some dark brwon highlights around the edges. Tastes like coffee, toasty malts and booze. Much more booze than I remember. This brew is pretty thick. Leaves a little slick on the sides of the glass. Nice, somewhat subdued carbonation. Coats the mouth. Great beer. The best brew I’ve had that’s brewed with coffee. Can’t wait to try the BA version.

Multiple samplers at the Real Ale Festival VIP Session at Pizza Port Carlsbad on 6/13. Another big standout of the tasting! Pitch black, crude oil appearance with minimal carbonation and no head. Serving this one from the cask beer engine just made it that much tastier. Robust coffee grounds and espresso aroma, but still maintains the well-balanced roasted malt and vanilla profile of Speedway. Serious amounts of rich black chocolate and amazing earthy coffee notes with burnt wood and some tobacco. Bitterness is more pronounced and prolonged with twice the coffee. Surprisingly drinkable with a thick, cheek-biting body. While I would still prefer regular Speedway, this is great!
Earlier Rating: 3/19/2007 Total Score: 4.7
I’ve tried this fantastic beverage many more times than I can count, and I can say that every batch on tap is noticeably different. I could not find many things that would depreciate the rating of this beer when I had 2 goblets of this stuff at Liars Club (Mission Beach) one time. A massive brown head, and incredibly smooth. The only way to really appreciate this beer is on tap, or in a true vintage bottle. One of the best ratings I’ve done yet. I must say that the vintage bottle (04) I shared with jarspag is what really kept my ratings high on this one. There is a huge variability between aged bottles and taps at different locations. Based on the vintage tasting, I think this is one stellar brew that mellows with age incredibly well. Thick and smooth, with a well-balanced hop profile and loads of coffee, molasses, figs and licorice. Extremely chewy malt character with dark chocolate notes and coffee bean lingering forever. One of my all-time favorite beers from the Smithy...from any brewery for that matter. Always available here in my stomping grounds of SD. This epitomizes the character of a near-perfect imperial stout for me. Great!

I am from SD and live close to the brewer. I love this beer but find a nuanced defect in the finish. I may imagine this but I taste a bit of grittiness perhaps due to the coffee grounds. What else is there to say: A big high ABV rich smokey stout with a great head. Viva Alesmith! I drink this regularily both from bottle and on tap. It never disappoints.

An awesome brew from Alesmith. Tried on cask at the PP Real Ale Festival. Very smooth. Very flavorful. Not too dry or too sweet. Low carbonation. Very easy to drink. Very easy. Chocolae aroma and taste. No over the top coffee bitterness that I was expecting. Excellent.
Earlier Rating: 4/22/2007 Total Score: 4.3
Deep, deep, rich flavor, possibly too deep, and needs serious aging to mellow out the coffee and roasting. Tried at Alesmith brewery. Bought a bottle of the 2004, which i rerate later.

Tasted at the Real Ale VIP Session. Black with a dark brown head. Dark chocolate and coffee aroma. Roasty chocolate and coffee taste with a robust espresso finish. All the goodness of speedway with more coffee flavor at every point. I really liked this one.
Earlier Rating: 5/2/2007 Total Score: 4.8
750 mL bottle. Roasted malt and chocolate aroma. Very smooth, velvety full bodied palate. Intense coffee and chocolate flavor with a thick bitter finish.

1st rating, yipee, for this is some damn good beer. Cask at VIP Session 11th Annual San Diego Real Ale Festival my first beer of the day. Poured black with a 1 finger light brown head. The nose is big and coffee is right there in the front of everything else and that coffee nose is huge. Taste is sweet, with coffee and more common speedway characteristics, overall very impressed, and not surprised by its greatness.
Earlier Rating: 7/31/2006 Total Score: 4.8
Decided to put in a re-rate in the spirit of cracking open my first bottle of 2004 bottle aged Speedway. Damn it was smooth and delicious. Pours black almost soy sauce like as others might refer to it. It has a bubbly almost non-head, there is something half there. The aroma is divine, smokey, coffee, roasty and rich. I’d say it smells like heaven. The taste is smooth rich and full of coffee, and chocolate. YUM! smells of coffee and malt. Had my first bottle after priming myself with a bottle of Rogue Hazelnut Brown. This beer is a behemoth, and I have to say it is fantastic. The coffee comes through strong and it is as dark as motor oil. The Alcohol is hidden like other Alesmith beers, watch out, that 12% will hit you like a ton of bricks. Yummy, and warning do not drink on an empty stomach