SKA Hibernal Vinifera Stout

Brewed by SKA Brewing
Style: Foreign Stout
Durango, Colorado USA

Serve in English pint, Snifter, Tulip

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Something just seems overly sweet and unbalanced about this one. Aroma is malt, roasty, toasty, faint fruit, and faint banana. The taste is real sweet with some strong malt character, faint oak, raisin, rum?, slight toasty taste, ...eek, it’s just overly fruity sweet toward the end... Would have like some more bitterness to create the needed balance, and a body that is thick and lasting.

Can from LetsPour.com. Pours very dark brown with a dark tan head. Aroma is coffee and chocolate. Med body. Now I get the vinosity - coffee, chocolate and then the grape sort of stirs in all up into a very different taste. Very interesting. It finishes pretty dry, and my mouth thinks its pretty bitter. Maybe thats oak. I wouldn’t say a lot is going on in this, but I am having troubling with my sorting.

Can. Pours a black color with a small tan head. Has a roasted malty chocolate and caramel aroma. Roasted malty chocolate and caramel flavor. Has a fruity malty chocolate and caramel finish.

A pitch black stout with small head. Aroma is filled with roasted malts, fresh hops, coffee and a hint of grapes. Flavor adds a nice balance between bitterness and sweetness, but the Malbec infusion is so discrete you barely notice it. Nice!

Poured from a can at sheffields. Super black oily pour with thin brown head. Aroma of chocolate and slight mint? The taste is great. Full bodied, sweet, chocolate, slight fruity taste too. A lot going on here. So good

A steady pour into my New Belgium globe glass produces a one-finger thick, nicely brown tinged, dark tan colored head. The beer smells of roasted grain and burnt fruit notes. Toasted whole grain, light toasted oak, touches of burnt, bitter chocolate, and a touch of spicy oak character all have a role to play here in the nose as well.

Roasted and bitter up front, with a richness to the mouthfeel, towards the finish though the beer thins out a bit, but retains it roasted character and picks up a bitter dark roasted character. The fruitiness from the nose is also here in the flavor, but much reduced; it is here, but more as an oral-nasal thing. The roast character is the dominant note here, rounded toasted whole grain, balanced burnt notes, sweet dark malt notes, rich cocoa and dark chocolate flavors.

This is actually a nice mix of Stout and wine grapes; I hadn’t realized that was what this was coming into this, but it is not bad. The grapes thin the stout out just a bit, not unexpected, but still it is just a bit more than I would like here. I do like how well the oak character has been done here; soft, subtle, and supporting, it manages to not get overly hot, spicy, or sharp like it so often can be.

Pours black with a big, tan head that dissipates slowly. Had aromas of roasted malts and dark chocolate. Sweet and roasty all the way down, dark chocolate aftertaste. Bigger bodied beer with a thick, oily palate. I didn’t detect any oak or grape juice additions.

12 oz can poured into a snifter. Pours jet black with a small brown head and nice lacing. Aroma is coffee and dark chocolate. Taste is sweet with coffee, chocolate, and a bit of grape flavor.

Bottled. Pours pitch black with a small brown head. Smells smoky, roasted malt, hasselnuts. Tastes roasted malt, creamy, smoky, light and well balanced.

Pours pitch black with beige head. Roasted aroma of dark fruit, toffee and some maltiness. Somewhat fruity taste with loads of roasted notes of chocolate. Some notes of wine cask but nothing dominant.