John Harvards Belgian Black

Brewed by John Harvards Brewhouse Lake Grove
Style: Stout
Lakegrove, New York USA

Serve in English pint, Shaker, Snifter

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Tap @ JH - black pour, reddish highlights... dark and roasty, black strap molasses, brown sugar and pruney. getting some belgian notes, but subdued (hint of banana) raisins, hint of fruits and cloves. Body is medium to thick, pretty smooth. finishes with some back bitterness and a bit astringent and carbonic.

On the menu, this beer is listed as Flanders Flemish Stout. Arrived at the table black with a moderate, creamy tan head that lasted beyond mid-glass and left a considerable coating of foam on the glass. Pleasant aroma of roasted malt along with perhaps a few wisps of chocolate. The flavor is again roasted malt with a few notes of mild tobacco and again just a slight hint of chocolate. Nice smooth, silky, well rounded mouthfeel. Light bitterness at the finish lingers briefly beyond the swallow. Easily my favorite beer of the evening at JH.
Earlier Rating: 8/9/2008 Total Score: 2.7
On tap sampled at NFB&WF ’08 at Martha Clara Vineyards. Pours just about black. Surprisingly light aroma of roasted malt and some molasses. The flavor was not very good and was dominated by tobacco and wet cardboard. Yuck! Perhaps the keg at the restaurant is better than the one they had at the festival, ’cause this beer was not very good..

Tap at the brewpub. Dark brown-black beer with a thin dark brown head. Aroma is surprisingly spicy with lots of the spicy clove character coming through on the nose. Fairly roasty as well with a bit of chocolate and black patent malt character on the nose. As it warms you get some light crystal malt sweetness but there is also a fairly pronounced grainy/husky character that makes it seem quite unrefined. It’s fairly sweet and chewy but there is enough charry roastiness to make is seem less sweet than it probably would otherwise. It has a lot of decent components, but it never really comes together for me.

Pours a dark ruby, nearly black out of the tap, with a small, but lasting, soapy lace - aroma is of roasted malt, vanilla, sweet cream - creamy palate, medium body - fairly sweet, but the roasted malt does a decent job of balancing it - it also adds a slight tobacco and char character to it, too, though - there is some innocuous fruity character near the finish that I assume is from the belgian yeast, but otherwise there isn’t much in the way of belgian character - a decent stout, but he’s made better ones.

UPDATED: AUG 7, 2008 Tap. Aroma of sweet butterscotch candies, roast. Flavor quite sweet, including sweet coffee (update: a lot more roasted malt than I got my first go at it, very nice). Certainly nothing cloying though. Good effort at a Belgian Stout. +1 in flavor from first rate.

UPDATED: AUG 3, 2009 On tap at John Harvards. Pours black with a nice light tan thick head that left nice lacing in the glass. Aroma of sweet roasted malt and coffee. The flavor is in the same vain, rather sweet. Blandish with a weak palate, but this is quite drinkable. I don’t get any Belgian qualities from this, but it’s a decent stout. I’d get this again from JH. 7/4/7/3/13

Update 8/7/08: Had this again on tap and it was a lot roastier and more flavorful. So I’m bumping it up a point. 7/4/7/3/14

Update 12/29/08: On cask at JH and it was noticeably better than the last batch. Lots of roasted malts and roasted nuts. Smooth mouthfeel and palate. Quite good. 7/4/8/4/14 (3.7/5)

Another update 8/3/09: On nitro tap at JH. Aroma of roasted malt, nuts, and charred malt. Flavor of roasted nuts, peanut butter, and bitter chocolate. Very smooth palate. This is one of the few beers that really works well on nitro. Very tasty! JH has really perfected this beer. 8/4/8/4/15 (3.9/5)