Carolina Beer Co. Cottonwood Hazelnut Stout

Carolina Beer Company
Formerly brewed at Foothills Brewing
Style: Imperial Stout
Mooresville, North Carolina USA

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle. I’m not sure at all what to expect here. Their Almond stout is quite cloying and one dimensional, yet the other Cottonwood high alcohol beers have been pretty decent and complex. So, which route will be chosen here? I pour quite a bit of the brew into a Brandy snifter to reveal a seriously black stout. This is one of those beers that is jet black. The head is a dark brown and lingers for 4 or 5 minutes before disappearing into nothing. Oh, this is one of my outside tastings. The temperature is currently 28 and the beer is about 68 degrees and will slowly cool down to cellar temp. The aroma is very potent on this one. I can smell it before I even make any effort to get a good whiff. Hazelnuts. Yeah. Tons of hazelnuts. Leaning towards the glass, I take a good sniff. I can pick up a bit of cacao and coffee this time, but still giant hazelnut presence. I let it sit just for minute before taking a sip. It strikes me as a notch thin for an imperial stout, but still fairly hearty. It’s an expected thickness for a normal stout. Hazelnuts blast my palate. The finish is very earthy and a bit roasty, like hazelnuts. There is a thin malty sweetness, but this isn’t a sugary brew by any stretch of the imagination. Okay, so this is something of a compromise between the two poles that I was expecting. It is quite one dimensional, that dimension being hazelnuts. However, it is not grittingly sweet or artificial tasting like some other flavored stouts (e.g. their own Almond Stout). I am very much enjoying it and it makes a great winter warmer. As an imperial stout, it disappoints, but I’m not sure an impy was their intention in the first place. As the brew cools down a bit the finish becomes even more nutty somehow. Less roasty and ashy, but more of a defined meaty sweetness, honestly like the flavor I’d find in just eating a handful of nuts. Pretty good stuff here, but I’d definitely be experiencing a specific craving to really want one of these again.

Courtesy of askofficerfriendly. Bomber pours deep darkness with mocha head. The aroma is . . . what is this! It pummels the senses with rich coconut, thick sweet nuttiness and chocolate as well as a sense of dry nut skins. The taste is similar with rich bold brash nuttiness, some chocolate going on in there too and coconut. It then rolls toward slightly sourness into the finish. If you want rich nuttiness look no further than this. Wow!

Thanks to the Tampa crew for the share. Pours a dark brown with a dark tan head. Holy hell, the nose on this beast! It smells like a jar of Nutella. No shit. The nose is straightup hazelnuts, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, slight roast, and some nuttiness. Flavor is everything it sounds like- hazelnuts with chocolates and some mild earthy nuttiness. Medium-bodied, and we could not decide if there were extracts used... I still can’t render a verdict, but either way it is unique and enjoyable.

22oz bottle. Pours a very viscous brown / black with a creamy tan head. Holy crap! I’ve never smelled a beer like this in my life. Nose of hazelnut, cocoa and coffee. Roast on the palate.

courtesy of tpd975 ’07 bottle and wow, what a gem this beer was. pours dark brown, tan fizzy carbonation. Aroma was just pure hazelnut goodness, Chocolate roast and malts, but overall it is dominated by hazelnuts. Flavors, has this dry nutty characteristic, nutty is all over this beer and I think it picks up where many of the hazelnut Italian beers fall short. There is a nice subtle light chocolate and roast along with mild bitter nut finish. Really unique, I can see how some might think it is overly nutty, and sharing the bomber was a good idea. This beer is nutella on steroids without all the corn sweetener crap.

A: Pours a nice dark black with a thin tight tan head. No retention or lace. S: Holy cow if you cracked a bowl full of hazelnuts and took a whiff it would smell less like hazelnuts than this. Light coffee notes, with a bold nut laden chocolate like candy sweetness with hints of vanilla. T: Damn this is good. Is this real nuts or an artificial sweetner. I really want to know how they pulled this one off. An ass load of real hazelnuts. There is even a bit of bitterness from the nutty pith of the nut. Hints of coffee, and a bold candy sugar like sweetness. To call this beer a pleasant surprise is an understatement. My buddy SeaBass called it liquid Nutella and I have to agree.... Liquid Nutella, but better. M: On the ligher side of medium, smooth. Dangerously drinkable. D: Very good. Unique, when I cracked the bottle I had no idea that this was what I had in store. Love It. Make it again and put it in a barrel for off the charts goodness.

A- Pours very dark black with a brown 1.5 finger head. S- Very strong hazlenut, almost like coffee creamer. T- Starts out with hazlenut but fades quickly to roasted malt, hints of coffee. A little light and cloying in the finish. M- A little thin with quite a bit of carbonation. D- This one definitely seems like a novelty to me. Too sweet for my tastes but it was interesting to try.

Roasted hazelnut pours from the aroma. Upon closer exam, there is a deep bitter bakers chocolate and perhaps some vanilla in there as well. Pours a very dark brown with a viscous tan head. A bit of tartness lends a very drinkable quality to this thick strong stout. The alcohol content is very obvious in this one. Flavor is bittersweet with hazelnut in every corner and crevice of this beer. Don’t even think about trying this one with dinner. This is a desert beer all the way.

If you love hazelnut then you will love this beer. I love hazelnut. Rich hazelnut aroma fills the room the moment the the cap is popped. This taste like the best hazelnut coffee I’ve had, but only better.

Thanks to BleacherBum for this!! "Cottonwood High Cotton Hazelnut Stout", 2006, Bottle #243. Poured medium-viscosity, deep garnety brown with a short cap of very deep brown head. The aroma reminded me of coffee with the creamer my wife used to use in it (chocolate/hazelnut).. rich coffee and chocolate with powerful hazelnut that I could smell from 4 feet away.. a bit of oak in there as well.. I must say that I enjoyed this! The flavor had much more chocolate than coffee.. dry-roasted and semi-sweet.. hazelnut, coconut, vanilla, and grainy oak surround (also some mild sourness from the oak).. finished dry with roasted chocolate and toasty coconut (I don’t like coconut, but I’ll make an exception when it’s presented this way). Medium-bodied, dry, and slightly sour on the palate.. I wish it was a touch thicker.. grainy back-end worked well for presenting the chocolate and hazelnuts. Excellent brew!

Pours black with tan head. The aroma is great as long as you want hazelnut. I could smell the beer as soon as it was on the bar. I have to say I have never had a beer with a stronger aroma. With that in mind I assumed it was going to be a disaster in the flavor. However the flavor is definately dominated by tha hazelnut it was queit nice. There was some hint of malt and some bitterness. We then decided that this beer needed something sweet so we ordered a wood fired chocolate cip cookie and vanilla hagendaz ice cream (wood on south in Charlotte) and the combination was a treat. Suddenly the hazelnut was much more balanced with the sweet desert. I would still like more bitterness in the beer itself but as a desert beer with a nice sweet chocolate desert I would have it again in a heartbeat. On its own once is enough.