Southern Tier Choklat

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

Poured black with a nice thick head. Aroma is sweet milk chocolate and chocolate milk. Rich and thick flavor of chocolate malts and roast. Its all about the chocolate here! Good beer!

These guys do not play when it comes to throwing in adjuncts. Geez. Soooo much chocolate. Bittersweet chocolates on the nose with an undercurrent of some hops. Flavor is nicely complex. Woody and charry. Of course there’s chocolate. Nice full mouthfeel with a creamy finish. Good beer, but I feel the overdoing of chocolate is just a little too much here, but it still very tasty.

Wow, I’ve never drank a fudge brownie before. Not much else to say. Really tasty. Don’t want it too often, but when I do have it, It’ll be delicious. It is a little chalky (not bad), as crowderm stated.

Pours a deep, dark black with very little head. Wow, the aroma is straight fudge brownie. Maybe a little bit of aged wood. The flavor is pretty similar...geez..they really nailed the chocolate flavor here, ridiculous. Maybe some nice caramel malts in support, and slight chalky flavor, but almost totally chocolate. The palate is nice and dense, although not quite as creamy as the best Imperial Stouts. Delicious beer.

Bottle. Body-hazy dark brown with a razor thin medium ring of bubbles. Nose-wood, big chocolate like a melted chocolate bar, chocolate cake, bittersweet milk chocolate. Taste-coco beans, hot chocolate, medium malty, bitter on the backend, milky, creamy, lactic, light sweetened creamed coffee, spicy hazel nut cream. Some may say that the chocolate is too upfront and over used in this beer, and they would be wrong. This bad boy is nice.

A healthy pour produces an almost three-finger thick, lightly browned, tan colored head. The beer is a deep black color, though if held up directly to the light it shows hints of concentrated ruby hues around the edges. This has a huge chocolate aroma, sweet, like a dense, dark chocolate mousse. Really this just has an intense, rich, full chocolate aroma to it. Perhaps a touch of toasted grain and burnt malt is noticeable underneath all this chocolate, but it is really hard to tell. If you really like chocolate you will like this aroma; rich, full and complex in its chocolate notes, but there is little else noticeable.

Thick and rich as it first hits my tongue, it becomes more viscous as it slides down my throat. Up front is lots of sweet, dark grain notes that quickly get engulfed by rich, dark-milk-chocolate like flavors. The beer picks up some substantial bitterness both likely from the chocolate and the roasted malt, but there is also some lingering hop bitterness in the finish that is not quite as potent, but does a better job of lingering on in the palate after the beer has slid down my throat. The bitterness is definitely quite needed for balance to the sweet malt and chocolate, but still plays only a secondary role. The carbonation, though light, adds a bit of acidity to this brew that accentuates some acrid, burnt grain notes. As it loses the carbonation it loses this acidic, acridness. It even seems to lose a touch of the sharp, biting bitterness, that while not overwhelming at first was almost a bit harsh at times despite the huge, sweet, chocolate character.

This really has an over-the-top chocolate character to it (both aroma and flavor), so if you enjoy nibbling on dark, fairly sweet chocolate then this should be right up your alley. This is definitely dessert in a glass, as it warms up it loses a bit of sweetness, but it becomes a bit more thick and rich to make up for this. I waffle back and forth between thinking the aggressive, almost harsh bitterness is too much with thinking that it is absolutely needed to help balance the thick, viscous, over-the-top chocolate character. I suppose it does distract me from a chocolate character that might be too much other wise, so in that sense it is good. At times I feel like I should be able to actually bite into and chew this beer, it is that rich and chocolaty. In the end this is a tasty brew, one which I would be happy to have more of.

22 oz bottle, via puzzl. Pours a deep dark brown with a nice foamy tight bubbled light brown head that faded slowly to a thin covering. Some minimal lacing remained. The nose is just ridiculous. Huge chocolate syrup and cocoa powder screams big chewy Tootsie Roll candies. No alcohol apparent in the nose at all. There really isn’t even a whole lot of roast or malt here cause it’s so chocolaty. Very candy like flavor, tootsie rolls covered in Hershey’s syrup! The roastiness does sneak past the chocolate later on in the finish. Just a touch of alcohol, which is pretty amazing for the ABV. Mouthfeel is full and creamy without getting sticky or cloying, the hops give a nice little twang on the finish keeping it from getting too sweet. It’s almost the consistency and flavor of a melted Wendy’s Frosty. Overall, this was just really a nice surprise. When I had this before, and I just had a small sample, I couldn’t see myself enjoying a whole bottle of it, but this bomber will be no effort to finish at all.

22oz bomber. Deep brown-black color. Intense cocoa aroma. Deep chocolaty taste. Really over the top chocolate-wise, almost deserving of a new style category. There is a great malt backbone underneath it all, and the hops really balance the whole thing out. This one really hides the alcohol exceptionally. A new classic.