Great Leap Brewing: Liu The Brave Stout (Nitro) (China: Stout: 7.1% abv)
Visual: Black. Still. A good centimeter of creamy head.
Nose: Creamy coffee. Dry roasted peanuts and general roasted nuts. Slight bitter cocoa.
Body: Creamy and full bodied. Light milk. Milky chocolate. Buttery shortbread. Lactose. Light toffee.
Finish: Light mint. Charring. Milky chocolate. Buttery shortbread. Cocoa. Nutty.
Conclusion: This feels like a very big and more robust than normal take on a milk stout. A kind of imperial sweet stout if you will. Mainly I say that as it is very creamy – which I would suggest is probably the nitro influence giving it a boost to the character already in the main beer – overall it deliverers a creamy, coffee heavy, beer.
The aroma hints at a more nutty ale, with dry roasted notes especially coming out, but then it vanishes, hiding before poking its head out again in the finish. So, the main body is generally that creamy coffee, with soft, gentle cocoa coming out late on.
As seems to be the trend so far on this trip, it is a solid, high quality but not pushing the boundaries beer. Still, it is a very balanced, creamy stout, the most unusual element I can find is a buttery shortbread backing which helps develop the robust character.
Over time, as the beer warms the cocoa character manages to build to a more bitter expression adding edge to the smooth beer – but Great Leap really seem to have taken its cue from the American use of nitro and uses it here to really show off the creamy character as the main thing.
Not unusual, but polished as heck.
Background: Second beer I tried at the Great Leap Brewing brewpub no. 6 – this one a stout on nitro. Looking online, it is apparently infused with spices, which I would not have guessed at the time – and the beer is named after the breweries founder’s father. I had a smoked lager after this but did not do notes on it – it was not bad – the smoke was gentle and just added a bit of backbone to the beer.