Friday Beer Blogging - Turn Out The Lights

Oh, today's beer is a personal all-time favorite offering from the Great Lakes Brewing Company. It is non other than Blackout Stout.

Pow.

This lovely beer pours black...like Goth black. Opaque. About a finger-thick dark tan head, like what you get on a Cappuccino, rests on top. The lacing, also very cappuccino in its color, is as plentiful as an antique curtain.

The aroma is pure brilliance. Coffee, espresso, dark chocolate, black patent roasted malt, a little whole wheat bread, heavy fruit (like a prune), and a really subtle, mellow hoppiness. Remember how Bugs Bunny was dragged along by an aroma that made itself into little fingers that beckoned him along? Yeah. That's this. What's Up, Doc?

The complexity of this beer upon hitting the tongue is like quantum physics. It all starts right up front with the core taste, the atom if you will, of dark roasted malt. But this atom of bitterness is made up of so many smaller and more complex pieces: espresso, bakers chocolate, brown sugar, walnuts. Oh, but the parts break down even smaller and more complex: sherry or port, potent alcohol. The mildly bitter hops flow seamlessly into the bitterness from the dark roasted malts like string theory. As we go from quanta back to the world as we perceive it, it is about a perfectly-blended mixture of tastes as you'll find, where one is no more strong than the next. Everything plays around one central theme.

Definitely a full-bodied beer, with a slight, tingling carbonation. Slick mouthfeel, slightly oily, but warmed and dissipated quickly by the alcohol.

I fell in love with this beer from the first taste. I could not perceive any off-flavors, and I am impressed with the work that must have gone into this beer. With the delcate blend of otherwise dominant tastes, a lot of love went into making this beer.