Vanilla Chai Chocolate Stout - Amber's Brewing Co.

biboergosum

Alberta (Canada)

3.53/5  rDev -9.3%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

A collaboration between Amber's and the Cha Island Tea Company, with the base being the Kenmount Road Chocolate Stout, on tap at Wunderbar.

This beer appears a solid black, with slight cola-tinged basal edges, and one fat finger of tight foamy chocolate milk head, which leaves an undulating array of mountainous lace around the glass as it duly settles.

It smells of earthy, spicy leafiness, atop a slight dry chocolate malt, and a mild orchard fruitiness. The taste is bready chocolate malt, kind of grainy, with more earthy, leafy musty notes repping the tea quite well. Any hops are either nonexistent or too mild to poke out through the organic onslaught of the chai 'adjuncts'...

The bubbles are fairly restrained, with a flat metallic edge, the body medium weight, and just a smidgeon of cloyingness mars the otherwise decent smoothness. It finishes off-dry, the chocolate going a bit the way of the coffee, some chewy tea grounds and weird tartness rounding things out.

Tea or chai or the like are difficult things to have an impact on a beer, let alone a hefty stout. This must be the exception that proves the rule - though the effect has its pluses and its minuses, and the whole is barely more than the sum of its parts.

Serving type: on-tap

02-17-2012 02:44:29 | More by biboergosum