Southern Tier Choklat

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Lakewood, New York USA

Off tap at Beer Run Charlottesville. Big roast chocolate aroma. Very dark almost opaque with small white head. Roasty with chocolate and dark fruits. Medium body with full creamy mouthfeel. Finish is sweet with moderate bitterness, touch of warming, and lots of roast and chocolate. Excellent, best beer of the day.

Draft at EBF. Pours very dark opaque brown with a bit of tan head. The aroma is of profound chocolate. The flavor is similar to the aroma, just fantastic. The mouthfeel is thick and creamy. Overall, this is a wonderful beer, though perhaps not as complex as other imperials.

wonderfully deep chocolate taste and aroma. Usual dark dark brown color and little head. Hard to notice the strength. Great beer.

From a bomber courtesy of Zin de Hey. Very dark brown with a mocha colored head that fades away moderately. First whiff reminds me of Hershey chocolate syrup. Beyond that there’s dark malts, vanilla and some mild alcohol. Taste is comprised of a dark chocolate-cocoa mix that finishes mildly bitter, the sweetness does come across mildly artificial. Mild roasted malt qualities and perhaps a touch of coffee also mix into the creamy palate. The alcohol is barely noticeable and at 11%, that’s a pretty good hide.

Bottle. Pours a dark brown/black, with little head. Delicious aroma, dominated by sweet chocolate, malts, and warming alcohol. The sweet flavor is dominated by chocolate, with floral (hops), earthy, and vanilla notes also present. The alcohol is fairly well-masked, especially given the 11% ABV. Pleasant, creamy mouthfeel. This is the best chocolate stout that I’ve had, though it’s somewhat lacking in complexity for an imperial stout. Still quite excellent, especially as a dessert beer.

Bottle. Head is initially small, frothy, brown, fully diminishing. Body is dark brown to black. Aroma is moderately malty (chocolate, cocoa, chocolate, cocoa, caramel, roasted grain), trace hops (flowers), with a STRONG note of vanilla. Flavor is heavily sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly to moderately bitter. Medium to full body, syrupy texture, soft carbonation, lightly to moderately alcoholic. This is almost more vanilla-ish than chocolatey...must have been a really vanilla-heavy chocolate they used. Literally almost like sniffing a bottle of vanilla extract. It’s nice in some ways, but kind of one-dimensional...chocolate and vanilla completely dominate the aroma. The other elements struggle to come to the surface. Syrupy sweet, but not cloying. Not as good as hoped, but not as bad as feared.

22 oz. bottle. Pours black with a mocha head that dissipates fast but has decent lacing. Smells like a chunk of dark chocolate. Maybe a little coffee, but really, really chocolatey, almost like hot chocolate. Flavor is again a chocolate bomb. Not very complex, but well balanced for the abundance of chocolate. Normally I would take points away for a lack of complexity that most great stouts have, but screw it. This stuff was awesome. If you like beer and chocolate, this is the answer.

Dominant chocolate. Like taking a Hershey’s bar and melting it. Can’t really be described any way other. Dessert beer for sure. It’s good, yet one dimensional, and at times the chocolate comes across as a bit artificial. That and the one dimensional aspect would be the negatives for this beer. On the positive side, you barely can taste the alcohol. Definitely something I could not drink a high volume of. Pretty decent.