Weird Beard: Le Debauche: Pankot Palace (England: Sweet Stout: 5.4% ABV)
Visual: Black. Moderate brown froth head that raises easily on a swirl.
Nose: Massive spice – Herbs, paprika, turmeric and the like.
Body: Spicy. Cinnamon. Chives. Lightly milky coffee. Dried lemons. Bombay mix. Lactose. Strawberry. Tea.
Finish: Lemon sorbet. Pepper. Spice. Salted lemon. Tea. Chives.
Conclusion: Wow. Much spice. Much smoothness. Much mixed. Now, I’m not an expert on Masala Chai, but I have an odd feeling a lot of my notes above could be summed up by just the words “Masala Chai” if I was.
This is very spice dominated, but in a soothing way, not a hot one. There are a lot of greenery notes, light pepper and a dried lemon freshness and sweetness. Also, I googled after drinking and found out Masala Chai is tea based. I am not surprised – while the base milk stout has a milky coffee note the overall beer more shouts tannins, teabags and tea.
Normally this much spice would put me off – It dominates the beer, hiding nearly of the base below. However here it makes the beer just so soothing – like a nightcap mix of a herbal tea and a porter. Ok a herbal tea and a milk stout here, but what you can taste of the base beer is kind of porterish. Anyway, it is all mashed into one gentle, sleep inducing, beer.
It really concentrates on doing one thing and doing it well -in this case using the spice, As of such I cannot see myself having it often, but as an occasional burst of soothing and unusual it is lovely.
Background: A Masala Chai Milk Stout, or so the bottle says. I mainly grabbed this from Indepedent Spirit as the bottle looks awesome, I have never tried Masala Chai so had no idea what to expect. This was made with 10 KG of Assam tea and bags of mixed garam masala. Well, the batch was, I presume not just this one bottle. So, yeah, took a chance on this one. Hope it works out.
