Crate: Sticky Toffee Stout (England: Stout: 5% ABV)
Visual: Black and opaque body. Still. Thin brown dash of a head.
Nose: Oh yeah, sticky toffee pudding. Roasted notes. Sticky toffee sauce as well. Chocolate.
Body: Light charred bitterness. Bready. Golden syrup sponge. Burnt sticky toffee pudding. Burnt brown sugar. Unleavened bread.
Finish: Sticky toffee pudding. Charring. Brown sugar. Slightly earthy. Golden syrup. Peppery.
Conclusion: This tastes slightly burnt. I mean it tastes super sticky toffee pudding styled, but also kind of like they burnt it while it was cooking. So, very much a good news / bad news kind of situation.
Chilled it also feels too thin, but give it a bit of heat and that sorts that out sharpish. It is still not thick, but feels very much present.
The main core is that sticky toffee pudding – a bit heavy, a bit burnt, but definitely recognisable as the dessert it is emulating. It is rounded out by earthier, breadier notes. They come across as what would be grounding notes in a sweeter beer, but here it seems very heavy as what would be the sweeter notes are instead delivered in a very dry and slightly charred way.
So, that sounds quite harsh on it, it is ok as a beer. I mean, very good at delivering its core conceit, but feels like it leant in too hard on trying to counterbalance the dessert style with dried, charred and earthy burnt notes when it was already fairly heavy and results in feeling a bit stodgy, and never hits the high notes that would help it rise to the occasion.
It’s ok, again I say that but I feel I must emphasize that as I feel like I am really slagging on it. It is ok but doesn’t really grab me. It doesn’t really deliver the standard stout notes that would work as nice rounding here, nor willing to go full crazy with the sticky toffee sweetness.
Great on implementing the idea, only reasonable as a beer.
Background: Sticky Toffee Pudding. Yep I’m a fan of that, so despite the fact I am slightly worn out on the dessert take on stouts I was attracted to this one. Helps that it was a normal abv stout, rather than its imperial variant as most of the dessert beers are. Noticed that Warren Ellis had put out another Spektrmodule, so listened to that while I drank this. This was another grabbed from Independent Spirit. Good luck to them in these hard times!
