REVIEW: Southern Tier Crème Brûlée Stout

Today's beer comes courtesy of a glowing recommendation form my good friend, Grant. This was always one that I wanted to try. One that I knew I'd get around to one of these days. But Grant's enthusiasm for the beer definitely bumped it up the list. Crème Brûlée is an Imperial milk stout. It's brewed with 2 row pale malt, dark caramel malt, columbus and horizon hops lactose sugar, and plenty of vanilla beans. It checks in at 9.5% ABV. This ought to be intense. To the beer!

Crème Brûlée pours a viscous, motor oil black. Not one bit of light is passing through this one, completely opaque.The inviting yet formidable looking liquid is topped off my a thin layer of tan head that recedes fairly quickly to a resilient rim atop the beer and leaves some spotty lacing on the way down.

Holy crap. The aromas on this beer are out of this world! Massive, decadently sweet candied vanilla notes are right at the forefront. The huge vanilla notes are backed by a charred character, perhaps some carmelized sugar, and some chocolatey notes. They add some welcome complexity, but let's be serious, this one's all about the vanilla. I hardly feel the need to drink this beer. I could leave my nose above the rim of this snifter and take deep long whiffs all night long. But for your sake, dear reader, I trek onward.

Crème Brûlée is very rich, very full bodied, and syrupy sweet. (I know I've railed against stouts that were too cloyingly sweet in the past, but somehow it works here. Just keep reading.) Creamy smoothness gives way to a charred vanilla, chocolate, molasses character. A suprisingly strong hop bite and a lingering espresso like bitterness do their damnedest to balance things out. And try as they may, this beer still falls firmly on the malty/ sweet side of the spectrum. It remains drinkable though. Those lingering espresso flavors I mentioned are no match for the vanilla flavors with linger on long after the bitterness has faded.

This is a pretty damn wild beer. Perhaps a bit sweet for my tastes yet I still enjoyed the hell out of it. This is not a beer I would want to drink every night, but it's a welcome diversion form the norm. The almost after dinner liqueur like character of this beer makes it a fantastic dessert sipper. Grab a bottle and share it late into the night in front of a fire.

HD