Founders Breakfast Stout

Brewed by Founders Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Serve in Snifter

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UPDATED: SEP 26, 2009 Original Rating, December 7, 2005. Black color with no head. Lovely aroma of milk and coffee. The taste is spot on for breakfast: oats and barley with a milky finish and the ever present coffee. For me, everything just blended together in a magical brew. A great way to start your morning!

2008 Vintage, Tasted Fall of 2009. I had been hoping and kind of expecting this to age wonderfully. Black color with no head. Glorious aroma of milk, sugar, coffee, oats and a light earthy hop. See? Good call on aging it! Or... not. Light cardboardy malt and stale coffee taste. Thin bodied. Light roast. If I was going to score this one, it’d be 8/4/4/2/11, however I will leave this extra rating as a warning not to age this magnificent beer. Now excuse me while I go finish off this year’s stash.

Big coffee wake your ass up kind of beer. This is what dreams are made of. The chocolate has subsided quite a bit but the coffee is still there. Wonderful stout that would make any stout virgin explode with instantaneous ecstasy.

12oz bottle from Total Wine- Kennesaw, GA. Pours straight black with very thin caramel head. Pours very thick and slow. Aroma is very sweet and malty. Mouthfeel is exactly what a stout should be, nice and thick. You definately get a dark malt taste at the beginning and the strong coffee in the aftertaste without much bitterness. This is a real deal stout.

Appearance: A black thickness pours from the bottle to glass and almost took on a velvet quality filling my tulip. There’s a small finger head of deep beige that disappears as quickly as it bubbles up. The beer is black as night and incredibly "solid" looking. The lacing here slides down the sides of the glass with a slow smugness giving the beer real legs. It stick solidly to the glass. Smell: The first thing that hits the olfactory is the coffee and it sets in nicely. There’s a powerful smokiness to the java scent. It’s rich, it’s heavy, it’s bad ass. There’s a creamy sweetness lurking in the background that has a strong caramel character. The oats here help impart the strong sweetness and that helps carry the bitter coffee. Rick dark chocolate and roasty smokiness close the smell. Mouthfeel: Breakfast Stout is rich and thick without being overbearing. It lays on the tongue slighty but the carbonation still makes it light. It’s delightful. There’s a creaminess here that reminds me of Left Hand Milk Stout. The "Imperial" really shines here. Taste: The top here is dominated by coffee with a thick dark chocolate backing. The pair play well together to produce a sublimely rich bitterness. As it passes the center of the mouth, a creamy oatmeal starts to peek out with a caramel malt backing it up. The transfer from the front to the center of the mouth is quite abrupt and this beer requires a little study to get everything out of it. As you finish, roasty caramel, malt and dark chocolate come together to compliment each other quite nicely. The oatmeal really stands tall here too. The whole tasting experience has a deep smokiness from the coffee that holds the beer together well. Overall: This beer deserves the praise it recieves. Everything from the coffee, oatmeal and chocolate to the malt, carbonation and velvety thickness come together to make for an incredibly drinkable beer. Founder’s has really outdone themselves here. A delightful beer and well worth the money and hype.

This is the complete stout for any stout virgins out there. This brew is a romantic that’ll sweep you off your feet :P

Shared by someone at the Monte’s Krown tasting yesterday. Pours a decent black color with almost no head. Notes of coffee, roast, some chocolate bar. Taste follows suit with strong coffee notes and the cocoa behind some roast. Very nice.

Bottle. Black with a dense tan head. Wonderful nose. Coffee and chocolate to say the least. Flavour has a tremendous blend of the two. There’s a shy nod of bitterness but generally it is sweet. Thick texture. Fantastically balanced. A real treat. Hype deserved.

Pours black with a beige head that dissipates quickly. Aroma is espresso and dark chocolate. Taste is big coffee, dark chocolate, and tobacco. Subtle bitterness. Silky on the palate. Great beer.

2008 Bottle. Ar: Sharp coffee, char, and cocoa. Ap: Midnight black, opaque - very large and dense light mocha head with excellent retention and a thick web of lacing. T: Coffee and a touch of cherry up front, with medium sweetness - some cocoa, cinnamon, and anise - low bitterness, with lots of chocolate and a clean alcohol warmth - finish is fairly bitter, though it seems to be from the dark malt and coffee rather than the hops. P: Medium-fully body, luscious and smooth - high carbonation with a medium-dry finish. O: Delicious and rich beer - at least in this batch, I think the coffee is more pronounced with age (compared with fresh, where the coffee seems less prominent next to the higher chocolate flavor).

An elusive top 50 bottle, finally obtained. Deep black colored pour, no head really. Aroma is richly laden with coffee, reminiscent to me of Peche Mortel. Real espresso aroma, some roast grain and a bit of dark chocolate. Taste is well balanced, good mix of the malty sweetness and cold bitter coffee for something approximately right down the middle point flavor-wise. Alcohol is well hidden, palate is well adjusted, medium carbonation for a very full body. Tasty stuff, one of the better Founders beers for sure.

Bottle 35.5 cl thanks to Sebastian. Description says: some type of coffee cake, uh? Well... it is. Since the great foam you’ll get the impression of something strange: beige, grey, dark brown, moka. Aroma is intensive coffee, plenty of cocoa, oats, like a big mug full of breakfast cereal mixed with milky coffee. Just a little vanilla note. Same strength of MANY mornings, with roasted and wood addition. Mouthfeel is liquid tiramisù (popular italian dessert), absolutely. Extremely pleasant, really has power that of spoonful of cake: sponge, cocoa and coffee again. But isn’t normal coffee, you feel like high-grade one. Milk and cane sugar too. Roasted malt is dominant. Body is medium to full, viscous, and impressive is the balance between sweetness and bitterness. Dry coffee finish, licorice, a little hint of anice. The same finish, in the end, of a mug of... coffee. Well... what a marvelous beer.