Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast

Mikkeller
Brewed at Nøgne Ø
Style: Stout
Copenhagen V, Denmark

Bottle drank at the Bayou with mikey. Man the Bayou kicks ass, Mikkeller in Utah! Pours a deep black with shades of brown swirling in it and a nice beige head. The aroma was pure coffee goodness topped with a ton of rich milk chocolate. The taste was similarly dominated by rich coffee and chocolate flavors also with a light toasted malt and just a hint of alcohol. The finish is very sweet. Very nice. I’m fired up that 50 bottles of this made their way to Utah, and that we had two of them.

Bomber. Pours dark brown with beautiful butterscotch head that leaves a nice ring around the top. Aroma is heavy with coffee, oats and a little oco. Flavor is like a mouthfull of black coffee with hints of oats and malt. Good amount of carbonation for a stout. Could use some more hops and this beer ends abruptly and could use some more bitterness at the end. If you like black coffe you will like this.

Bomber, aged about a year. Super pitch black pour and nearly opaque. Smaller, light tan foam. Aroma is quite suave, with an intricate blend of coffee and malt goodness. some hints of mocha, vanilla, espresso, etc. Flavor is terrificly balanced and fairly complex, with a really impressive and vibrant blend of coffee elements. Bottle conditioned or left heavily unfiltered, the texture and body is quite nice. Hints of chocolate and roast, with coffee elements of vanilla and mocha, some espresso. It all blends really well together. The bombers brewed at Gourmet Brewery are very tasty, although I’ve heard from a friend that the new 500 mL bottle brewed at Nogne O are not nearly as good.

Yes. Wow. When I first started getting into quality beers, they all seemed to have an overwhelming quality of hoppiness and alcohol--me coming straight from coors light to high-class IPAs and Imp Stouts--and this beer has a quality that I haven’t found in many years; I was nearly overwhelmed. There is just so much going on in this beer’s roast complex. Coffee, oats, breadiness, biscuitness, vinous, and dark sweets of choco and cola. Just great. The best thing about this beer is its low abv--at 7.5% I could see myself drinking 6 or 12 of these and not tiring of it; something I can’t say for the higher ranking dark beers I’ve had. Fantastic. Mikkeller is becoming a bit of a must-have brewer for me.

Wow one of the best recipes and best executions I’ve had. Inviting aroma. Nice clinging lace. Palate with a dry malt taste. Mmm...dark bitter chocolate. 7.5 % is non-existent. Thank god I don’t drink at breakfast . This silky smooth(oatmeal?) aroma is fresh and inviting so is the aroma of this wonderful recipe. wonderful.

Flaske. Flot tyk sort lækker øl. Kraftig duft af humle og brændthed. SMagen er ekstrem brændt der slår over i bitterhed, men på en udmærket måde når man først har vænnet smagsløgene til det. Problemet for det her batch jeg rater her, er at mundfylden er ikke eksisterende, meget vandet. Det trækker op på smagen da tidligere gange jeg har drukket denne øl har den været for brændt. Men det er nu en lidt mystisk oplevelse. Måske er dette bare ikke en øl for mig. Får et par ekstra nationalistiske point, da jeg ikke vil være med til at skubbe en dansk øl udaf top 50.

I was extremely pleased to see Mikkeller bringing their Beer Geek Breakfast Stout to my neck of the woods. Everything from their reputation to their stylistic typography and label design favored an outstanding beer experience. And I wasn’t disappointed. Though I didn’t think a beer this would pare well with any breakfast (maybe an ogre’s breakfast) I didn’t have second thoughts about it as a nightcap. The head is a carnivorous ’ribeye cooked to rare’ pink color, with a little light brown ’round the periphery. This head lasts about as long in my glass as perfectly cooked rare prime ribeye would, and thus settles to a light lily pad of brown fuzz. The body is predictably black - deep sea darkness, engulfing both mentally and physically. The pour matches the color with its oily slow-motion free fall into the goblet. Along with the short-lived head, the pour produces a stunning gaseous mix, such that coffee, bourbon, black pepper, potter’s soil, yam, grilled sweet corn and mesquite put my senses under siege in a hazy and confused reverie of flavor. In an act of mercy (though I do enjoy the aromatic punishment - beer masochism?) the flavor is plainer, though no less intense. Coffee astringency is bolder, with more oozing dark chocolate and a heavier starch vegetable flavor base, also making up some of the perceived mouthfeel and body. The beginning of the flavor run has the slightest edge of chocolate sweetness, but the rest is a hurtling through a gradually narrowing tunnel of dark, mostly bitter flavors. I am reeling, desperate to fight my way out of the shroud of heavy flavors, struggling like a fish caught in a net, but find it mostly exhilarating. When I’m done and the glass has returned to its normal empty clarity (though with slivers of dark shadowy liquid here and there) I am relieved and regretful, much as an adventurer would be at the end of a harrowing journey of peril. Also, I still can’t imagine washing down eggs, toast and granola with Mikkeller’s take on chasm-colored beer.

Bottle purchased and enjoyed at Kulminator, Antwerp. Smells of port, melted chocolate, and alcohol, with a bit of wet coffee bitterness testifying to the roasted malts and hops. Taste is roasty at first on lively carbonation; the middle gets creamy with dark chocolate semi-sweetness and fuller body, the chocolate turning dry like Baker’s chocolate until he dry coffee grounds in the finish. Pours completely opaque with an unremarkable head, appetizing like all stouts but nothing special. Tasty, but the feel was not as dynamic, smooth, or full as I like in my stouts (I guess it’s not as big as I thought at only 7.5%). I’d prefer Founder’s Breakfast or Peche Mortel.