Jolly Pumpkin Madrugada Obscura

Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Style: Stout
Dexter, Michigan USA

750ml bottle, batch #359, from green’s in columbia, sc. pours black with a thick, creamy, dark tan head and wonderful lacing (my bottle was certainly not a gusher). aroma is very nice with big dark chocolate notes, dark roasted malts, tart red fruits, nuts, molasses, and a hint of bitter coffee with mild belgian yeast notes. flavor is excellent and very unique with the big belgian notes of tart berries, yeast, barnyard, and a bit of funk up front backed by smokey wood, dark chocolate, mild bitter coffee, and tobacco with a lingering, smokey, chocolatey finish. palate is medium to full bodied with high carbonation and not a hint of booze. overall, another winner from jolly pumpkin.

Bottle. Black body with a foreverlasting large brown head. Aroma is sourish, roasted malt, hops, dark fruit. Flavor is sourish, fruity, roasted malt, oak, bitter chocolate. Great.

Bottle shared by hallinghansen. Pours black with a tan head. Aroma is roasted malt, vanilla, raisins and sour cherries like. It has a pleasant sour base, with notes of roasted malt, oak, vanilla and dark chocolate. The sourness makes it so nice..

Bottle. Thanks hallinghansen for sharing! Lovely aroma of roasted malt, strawberry, acidic citrus, dates and raisins. The flavour is light sour, fruity, bitter coffee, berries and roasted malt. Very harmonic and complex. So nice!

Sample at the Eurostash II tasting on 12/12/09: Batch 266 courtesy of Rogueone. After 1/4 of the bottle was lost to a geyser, the beer is black with a thick tan head that takes a long time to diminish. Sticky patches of lacing on the glass. Smokey and roasty aroma with notes of chocolate. Medium, smooth body with an ashtray character that has smoked malt and mild chocolate underneath. The finish is all smoke with a bit of hops left over. Overall this beer is too far over the cliff in terms of the smoke to be truly enjoyable to me.

Bottle sample of Batch 266 as an intermission beer at Dogbrick’s Eurostash II tasting on 12/12/09. Gusher bottle pours black with a huge light brown head. Roasty nose with chocolate, that unmistakable JP yeast and some green olive. Malty and roasty flavor with chocolate, smoke and a tart finish. Decent for the style, but I’m still trying to develop a taste for the Belgian stout category.

Pours nearly black with a ridiculously large head...had to quell my pour just to keep this one in check, and it took a while for things to subside. Aroma is somewhat muted for a JP beer, but there’s a bit of funk sitting in the background...otherwise a generally roasty feel. Flavor is intriguing...very stout-like up front...roasted malts, underlying sweetness, but has the typical JP funk that ends up dominating. Slight bit of lemony note at the end, and you pucker as this one ends...interesting beer. A sipper for the style, but not bad overall. Don’t think I’d run to this one again, due to the price and my preference for other beers from the brewer, but that does not make this one bad in the least.

Big time gusher and hard to pour because of all the carb. The carb makes the beer have a beautiful, long lasting tan head. Nose is a funky chocolate, like you ate a candy bar while cleaning some musty laundry. It’s interesting, and the taste mostly follows the nose, but it’s just too sour. The chocolate up front lasts for a few seconds on the tongue, but then the beer just explodes with sourness, and it’s not the tasty kind. An absurdly confusing beer: hard to drink lots of due to the flavor assault, it hides the 8.1% alcohol as well as any beer I’ve had since I first tried PtE. Worth trying once, but too expensive to merit a rebuy.