Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout

Brewed by Kiuchi Brewery
Style: Stout
Ibaraki, Japan

(Bottle, thanks OSLO and Guerde) Pours black with a brown head. Roasted and light burned aroma of coffee beans up front but also some chocolate in the background. The usual strong coffee tones of parsley, green pepper (jalapenos) and gravel are all present. The flavour has a bit more complex malt composition with clearer chocolate notes but the coffee is still dominant. Some milk in the middle and the finish holds some dark fruit notes of raisins and figs. Hints of gravel. Light to medium bitter with a dry ending and some sour notes. Medium bodied. A quite good coffee stout but with the usual problem: a lack of complexity as the coffee dominates.

Huge nose of chocolate covered espresso beans. Huge bakers chocolate note as well, with vibrant coffee grounds and roast hitting the palate. I mean, it’s kind of just a straightforward coffee stout, but man, is it delicious.

Deep dark color with a quickly dissapating tan head. Big coffee flavors and sweetness. Nice after dinner beer. Slight bittersweet chocolate flavors but coffee dominates and makes this one a little one dimensional.

Pours a solid black color with a thin tan head that lasts all of 10 seconds. Odd aroma...obvious coffee flavors, but there’s something funky/musty about it...after sitting here just testing the aroma for 5 minutes, I still can’t figure out whether or not I like it. Flavor is strong espresso coffee with hints of milk chocolate. Burnt malts also take over late in the drink. Leaves a bitter, nutty aftertaste that really didn’t jive with me. Unless you like coffee...don’t even bother with this one, as it is pretty one-dimensional.

Courtesy of after4ever and shared with after4ever and bitbucket. Pours dark brown to black with mocha head and decent lacing. The aroma is big with a bag full of ground Folgers’s coffee beans with some faint roasted malts hidden behind. The taste, how is this not coffee?, it looks like coffee, it smells like coffee and it tastes like coffee. Midway a faint roasted to burnt maltiness shines through the coffee. It finsishes very coffee like. It’s more coffee than stout with no sense of the ABV.

12-oz. Thanks, Footy! Black with dense, moussy, bubbly tan head and plenty of thick sheets of tan lace. Enormous coffee nose, almost to the point of sourness. Rich, thick, creamy body with tingly carb. Then comes an overbearingly powerful but still tasty sledgehammer of coffee flavor. Some roast, char, and chocolate underneath the tsunami of coffee. Bitter finish, but it’s a coffee bitter, not a hop bitter. Nice but out of balance.

Bottle: Poured the expected black color with a thin tan top. The big aroma isn’t much different than the filter bowl in the nasty ol’ coffee pot in my office ... thick and dirty with burnt coffee bean essence. The flavor isn’t much different ... this is a cold cup of your daddy’s coffee from the neighborhood diner ... thick with flavor, enough that you’re rolling your tongue around in your mouth, convinced you’ll find some unground beans in there. Yummy yummy in my tummy. (#3172, 11/4/2007)

This is strange. The aroma is slightly toffee, dirty socks, cocoa, and strange. Taste is very similar, but more unsweetened cocoa. I feel lines of cocoa! I am a cocoa head (lame!). Finish is slightly smooth with a diminishing harshness. Very decent and different.