REVIEW: Founders Breakfast Stout

Beer drinkers in the know will be familiar with this one. Even if they've never had Breakfast Stout, they know of Breakfast Stout. It's one of the most well regarded imperial stouts in the world. And as we will soon see, for good reason. Also, adding to the mystique of the Breakfast Stout are the rarer varieties, the Kentucky Breakfast Stout and the Canadian Breakfast Stout. Aged in bourbon barrels and bourbon barrels that contained pure maple syrup just prior respectively. I've only had the KBS once, and have never been lucky enough to sample the CBS. Hopefully we'll see those on the blog one of these days. But today we're dealing with the standard Breakfast Stout. Brewed with flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolate, Sumatra and Kona coffee and checking in at 60 IBUs and 8.3% ABV. This should be fun. To the beer!

Breakfast stout pours a viscous, inky, silky motor oil black. Black as sin and completely opaque. It's capped off by a thin layer or mocha colored head that receded fairly quickly.

The aromas on this beer are wonderful. Big intesnse notes of roast coffee lead the way. They're backed by lots of strong chocolatey notes, both bitter dark and sweeter milk chocolate. There's a reast rich underlying sweetness going on here.

Breakfast stout is full bodied, rich, and incredibly smooth. The bitter roast coffee flavors come out first and are quickly joined by notes of chocolate and a great full sweetness. The sweetness then fades and you're left with a delicious lingering bitterness. But not a bitterness derived from hop flavors, it's a bitterness derived from the coffee. Very tasty. For a beer as big and sweet and high in alcohol as this one is it is amazingly drinkable. Due in no small part, I'm sure, to the rather stout 60 IBUs that balance everything out. Also, the alcohol is wonderfully hidden. As the beer warms a bit the flavors seem to meld together a bit. The huge bold coffee and chocolate flavors recede slightly and a slightly acrid roasty tang emerges. It's also accompanied by a decadent smoothness.

Founders hasn't really done anything groundbreaking here. Breakfast Stout is a big imperial stout with coffee and chocolate. There are tons of those. What makes this beer special is that it's a big imperial stout with coffee and chocolate that's been executed absolutely masterfully. This is one of the best stouts you're likely to try. Seek this one out.

Also, with this beer I'm going to try something new. I've wanted to try aging beers for a while now and figured, since I bought a four back of this beer, that this would be a perfect time to start. I threw two of these in the fridge to drink now and put the other two in the basement where they will stay dark and cool. I'll come back to them in a year or two and we can see how the flavors have developed and changed. I'm pretty excited. Stay tuned!