Pike XXXXX Stout

Brewed by Pike Pub & Brewery
Style: Stout
Seattle, Washington USA

Serve in English pint

Bomber. Poured healthy deeper brown with a creamy cap of short tan head. The aroma was just what I needed.. deep coffee, anise, and caramel maltage with a sweet uptake on the back that carried fresh pine.. light smoke accent.. just a wonderful blend of components. The flavor picked up sweeter, deeply-roasted coffee at the core surrounded by dry, smoky pine needle bitterness.. the hops and coffee bitterness made a stronger impression toward and through the finish.. tasty and well-balanced. Dry and medium-bodied with rising bitterness as the drink progressed.. a little too sharp toward the back.. all in all quite excellent!

Bottle, chris_o shindig. Very dark brown with a brown head. Nose is burnt espresso malt with a touch of hop and yeast. Slightly sour sherbert. Very gassy mouth with strong chocolate. Some milk chocolate and roasted malts. Burnt aftertaste that lasts. Quite good.

UPDATED: FEB 14, 2007 2005: On tap at the College Inn in Seattle; also bottled.

Pours a deep black with a nice tan head.The aroma is the expected coffee and roasted grain, with a lovely full nose of black cherry. Flavor is rich - dark chocolate, coffee, cherry, molassas, plum, with a well-balanced but unobtrusive hop finish - and the mouthfeel equally so, full and satisfying and not the least bit watery like some of its competitors. The commercial description alludes to the "strengh of character of Imperial stout"; this is not an idle claim. An excellent big-beer styling at only 6.2%.

Sampling the ’05-’06 in Febraury ’07, the beer retains a very nice roastiness along with a lactic, almost sour aroma and flavor that is quite enjoyable.

2006: In bombers this year, at 6.6%. The coffee flavors are really heavy, especially late in the flavor profile, but this is really nice stuff. It’s drier than most of the imperial stouts, with a powerful burnt-coffee bitterness in the finish.

Note: This one comes into its own as it warms, and needs to be served at cellar temperature or above.

Bomber. Pours ultra-black with some amber hues at the edges and an interesting two-layered head-- the bottom half was a darker brown, the top half a khaki tan, with a definite line between them. The aroma is coffee, chocolate, brown sugar, and red wine- a more sophisticated nose than I had expected. The flavor is coffee, bitter chocolate, mildly acidic raspberry, and toasted wood at first. It then gets some brown sugar and rum notes, but the roastiness intensifies to keep the sweetness at bay. The finish is somewhat piney, and also a little bit vinous. It leaves an ashy, but tasty, aftertaste. Basically a session-strength imperial stout, I could seriously put a few of these away.

[2006 GCBF] This is a textbook stout. Not too thick, pure black, really coffee flavoured, not watery at all. Exactly what you could want from a stout.

22oz bottle from yonkers65 thanks:pour a black colour with a nice foamy coffe coloured head. aroma is of smoke and choaolate, and some malt. a wonderful chocolate flavor that is very full very smooth with a perfect bitter espresso bite in the finish.

On tap at Pike: A large black almost imperial stout. Looks great, lovely texture, tastes of chocolate.

UPDATED: FEB 8, 2012 22oz from SamuraiArtist - thanks, Ezra! A simply beautiful beer, in looks, smell, and taste. Thick and black, with hints of ruby peeking through - maybe not quite as viscous as I like but quite fine. And certainly the thick, almost oily mouthfeel is pleasing in the extreme, with subtle (!!) roasts emerging from the smooth chocolates. Slight bitterness in there (from wood or dark choc?), and just a hint of dark fruit. Man, I need more of this stuff.