Bottle the last of New England haul from Chalumeaux. Nice deep dark pour. Nose is fine cocoa powder and espresso. Tastes of coffee, dark chocolate, plum pit, espresso. Don’t get the vanilla bean. Solid imp Stout. Not sweet.

On tap at B33R Gallery (awful money) Okay, this is rather generic rating. B,worth for the money? I, don’t think so

Pours deep brown into a snifter. Mocha head with good retention recedes to mottle surface. Chocolate and coffee aromas. Thick with hot chocolate covered pit fruit upfront turning to chewy vanilla espresso in the lasting finish.

Bottle thanks to Gibson. Pours a very dark brown with small beige head that lasts. The aroma is chocolate, vanilla, strong roast. Medium body, similar flavors to nose, boozy finish, very good.

Bottle, batch 1, a generous gift from Airforcehops, drunk 10/15/15.
Medium-sized tan head slowly recedes to cover/ring, but is coaxed out again with every swirl. Clarity is medium and despite spending 4 months in the fridge, there’s very little that’s dropped out, thus showing it to be fairly-to-heavily filtered. Kind of disappointing, but oh well.
Vanilla, fresh and strong is very evident in the nose. Aside from that, plenty of baker’s chocolate, light tobacco and hints of coffee come through. No booziness in the nose initially, with only a bit coming through with warming and breathing. Overall, aroma-wise, the vanilla’s a bit too dominant, but it’s not over-hopped or a boozy mess, so there are pros and cons.
Flavor wise, I’m impressed at the texture for a seemingly filtered beer. Rich, soft, creamy/silky and sweet, but yet not cloying in the least. The vanilla, of course, takes a big role, while chocolate, light ashiness and again, rather minimal coffee (fine with me) are noted. Even with warming, the alcohol is never problematic and the carbonation is quite appropriate, being neither too fizzy/forced nor too low. So it’s confusing here, it certainly dosent have the traits of a heavily filtered beer (fizzy, loose carbonation, thin texture, sugary finish) but yet why was there nothing in the bottom of the bottle? While I didn’t get any acetaldehyde like Mike, there certainly is a bit of raw ethanol that emerges after it warms. Perhaps that’s what he’s getting? Could very well be green apple, though I don’t know how you’d pinpoint that through all of this malt, vanilla and coffee. Anyways, acetaldehyde and ethanal certainly do have a much larger chance of being exposed with heavier filtration, so that works with my theory.
Anyways, to wrap up yet another rambling, ridiculous review (but hey, why am I on this site if not to indulge myself in such behavior?), this was a good beer doing a lot of things right (good attenuation, no sharp booze, no resin, good texture) and a few things that could use some work (way too much vanilla, could use a touch more complexity, some light alcohol notes in places, maybe a touch too sweet). Seems like an unfiltered version of this that was thrown in to a barrel would be incredibly, incredibly good. That would help cut some of the sweetness, add a bit more complexity and take some of the focus off the vanilla. Sounds like that’s in the works, so consider me excited.