Midnight Sun Oak Aged Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Porter

Brewed by Midnight Sun Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Anchorage, Alaska USA

22 oz bottle. Dark brown with a thick and creamy tan head. Nose is raisin, banana, nutmeg and milk chocolate. Sweetness fades to rich coffee. Smooth, full body that starts with a tang and ends with a tingle. Taste is plum with light cherry, vanilla and oak. Dries with coffee, sour pumpkin and muted spices. Wonderful stuff.

Bottle on my wall of beer. Pours a deep brown body with a tan head. Sweet roasted malt, pumpkin pie, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, mineral chocolate body. The oak adds a lot of balancing body to dull out some of the spices. Very good overall this one really hit the spot.

20087 bottle shared by SuzyGreenberg. Thanks man. Has an obvious nose of oak, roasted malts, and light pumpkin pie sweetness. Pours almost black with a thin head that lingers. Oak up front with some tartness. Chocolate, pumpkin pie, more oak and some dry roast come in and a light oak tartness lingers on the palate. Dry finish. Smooth drinker. Not as good as the regular IMO.

2008 bomber. Pours a dark chocolate mahogany color with a small but dense, foamy, khaki colored head. A soapy wash of lacing leaves a few spots behind to dry. The aroma shows notes of dry cocoa powder, fresh pumpkin flesh, vanilla, oak, and mild, well integrated winter spices. Flavors follow suit, semi-sweet chocolate proving it is a worthy match to fresh pumpkin. Vanilla laden oak serves to draw everything together into a cohesive unit, while creamy caramel notes smooth things out even further. Spicing is mild, mostly dulled clove and nutmeg showing, which allows for the choco-pumpkin to shine, as it should be. Medium-full bodied, with a smooth, milkshake-like consistency. The glass is empty all too quickly on this one. This is just a smooth, tasty, easy drinking beer that goes down way too easy. Awesome stuff.

2008 bottle. dark brown with light tan head. light spicy aroma with chocolate and a little pumpkin. slightly bitter and very tasty, though the oak is almost undetectable. the flavors play very well with each other

OTH tasting 09/06/08 courtesy of gunhaver. Pours deep dark darkness with thin tan head. The aroma is bold and full of varied notes like pumpkin, chocolate, mild oak, cinnamon, malted milk shake and raisins. The taste starts with bold pumpkin and chocolate that play very well together. Then some raisins and spices rise up with a red wine and red wine tannin sensation. It ends with lingering pumpkin, chocolate and highly roasted malts. Smooth - YUM!

Bottle. Intense nose heavy with strong roast and dry oak. The pumpkin character is spicy and meaty, the intensity is just barely overtaken by the roast, dry wood and char, but there’s a distinctly sweet cream pie note that develops as the beer opens up. The nose alone suggest the base beer is a stout. Body is medium to light, but it is 7.8% so it’s not weighted down by sugars. Otherwise it has a "medium fullness" - full in the mouth up front during a gulp but then petering out on the back. Up front it’s slightly sweet pumpkin spice, a faint note of whipped cream and creamy pumpkin pie filling with a subtly sweet chocolate syrup character. Dries out a small bit across the middle and leaves a dry, roasty, oily film coating the mouth for a long time after. Overall it’s an exceptionally well done pumpkin stout, the promised chocolate and pumpkin are delivered, and though the oak ageing isn’t really that obvious to the tongue, I can say with certainly that I enjoyed this one more than the non-oak aged version (2007) that I had a few months back. Great beer all around, especially well suited for a cool autumn night.

22 oz. bottle - 2008 release of the oaked 2007 batch; jet black, thin and oily; bourbon and wood aromas dominate; pumpkin just isn’t there anymore; silky smooth and oily texture; vanilla and chocolate; wow, a silky almost stout-like brew; sadly the complexity of the regular ICPP is faded and dominated by the oak aging; still fabulous on its own, but a case where oak aging didn’t not improve the base beer; but to be honest, not sure how to improve on the ICPP as it is just a masterpiece