Brewdog: Semi Skimmed Occultist (Scotland: Stout: 8% ABV)
Visual: Black with dark brown edges. Inch of mounded, brown creamy froth head.
Nose: Light roasted nuts. Cashew nuts. Light milk. Quite clean. Milky coffee. Light greenery.
Body: Milky and creamy. Creamy chocolate to chocolate liqueur. Rich chocolate cake. Thick mouthfeel. Milky bitter coffee. Fudge. Vanilla.
Finish: Chocolate cake. Light hop earthy notes. Milky coffee. Scones. Bitter chocolate shavings. Vanilla.
Conclusion: This thing uses a shit-ton of ingredients to work out the one thing it wants to do, and then does it well. Basically this takes all the core stout elements spread over several beers, and epitomises them in a single beer. It takes a lovely thick texture, creamy flavour, varied chocolate and coffee notes, and sweet vanilla and just crams them together. It has a few other rounding notes, but basically this concentrates on the core stout concepts and does them very well indeed.
Strangely, I had no idea of this going in as the aroma announced pretty much none of that. In fact it instead brings in the one stereotyped stout style that the body missed -a rough edged nutty character. Overall though the aroma is pretty simple and gives no hint of the rich creaminess to come.
Warning then, since the aroma does not – this is a very sweet stout; Though it is delivered in a creamy, not a sugar shock way. It manages to wear the creamy chocolate styling alongside mild bitter chocolate and coffee opposition so that the base sweetness is big, but not sickly. In fact the biggest sweetness, and closest it gets to sickly is from the strong vanilla backing, it is quite sweet and slightly syrupy, but manages to to only appear for long enough to make an impact, not dominate the beer.
So, yeah, the oats, wheat, et al have all given this a fantastic smooth and thick mouthfeel so it can put on a lesson on how to do a luxury stout. There is nothing unique here, but it does everything well.
Background: Usual disclaimer – I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. Anyway, this is their most recent canned release with neat art. I’m not going to complain at that trend – I do like how they are making cans something that are visually appealing, which is seemingly a tad harder to do than with bottles for some reason. This is a stout (Possibly imperial stout – it is right on the line for me on that) made with (deep breath) wheat, oats, cocoa nibs, lactose, coffee and vanilla. None are too unusual, but it is rare to see them all shoved together in one beer. Anyway, due to having grabbed tickets to see NXT Wrestling later this year, this was drunk while listening to a one hour long version of Shinsuke Nakamura’s theme. Yes I am odd sometimes. However it is awesome, and so is he.
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