Black Cat Coffee Stout - Goose Island Beer Co.

philberinghele

Illinois

4.9/5  rDev +6.1%
look: 5 | smell: 5 | taste: 5 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.5

enjoy this rare treat
late-winter celebration
black Russian coffee

This is a truly supreme beer. A dry, hoppy stout bent on imperial conquest stumbles upon a colonial coffee plantation and sets to work ravaging the Don's beans. The bastard offspring create a beer that makes me long for Imperial Court of Nicholas II. If not for the shenanigans of Rasputin we might all be hailing the czar by raising a frothy glass of this stout. Possibly the best beer I've had this year.

Serving type: on-tap
@ Goose Island Clybourn, 1800 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago

03-08-2007 15:10:10 | More by philberinghele

brandoman63

Illinois

4/5  rDev -13.4%

11-30-2011 03:32:48 | More by brandoman63

sbricker

Illinois

5/5  rDev +8.2%

11-14-2011 16:44:01 | More by sbricker

DaPeculierDane

Wisconsin

4.6/5  rDev -0.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 5

Opaque. Black. Thick looking. Nice head. Brown and lasting. Smells like coffee, sweet, freshly roasted coffee. Great malt backbone in the flavor and then coffee, loads of it. Sweet caramel center and bitter chocolate finish. Full bodied, rich, delicious. Drinkable??? By the imperial pint yes! I can’t believe this beer is so strong. I downed a pint like it was a milk shake. This is a really great beer that holds its own against the really big coffee stouts. One of the highlights of the recent Chicago CTA Pub Crawl II.

Serving type: on-tap
@ Goose Island Clybourn, 1800 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago

03-19-2007 17:07:12 | More by DaPeculierDane

beerinator

Illinois

4.6/5  rDev -0.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 5

The base beer here is Will's Russian Imperial Stout. Black Cat has been "dry beaned" with coffee beans. This basically means that a portion of the RIS was aged with fresh Intelligentsia coffee beans.

Appearance: Black, very opaque beer. Brown head with fairly good retention. The beer appears slightly oily.

Aroma: Smells strongly of sweet black coffee. Aroma is heavy with fresh ground beans. I don't even drink coffee, but this smells great.

Taste: Full bodied beer. The flavors here are harsh but superb coffee ground flavor mixed with sweetened caramel from the malts. There is chocolate bitterness in the finish, but it is mostly hidden by the coffee flavor. The beer is slightly slick on the tongue.

Notes: My wife akined this beer to eating some great chocolate covered coffee beans. I still have half a pint... you should be really jealous. (note: as I compose this review from last night's notes, I no longer have half a pint, and I am sad.) I've had Dark Lord, Founder's Breakfast Stout and Peche Mortel in the past few days, and I think I was as pleased with the Black Cat as I was with any of these other beers!

Serving type: on-tap
@ Goose Island Clybourn, 1800 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago

03-22-2006 13:18:47 | More by beerinator