Intentionally Indulgent
Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis, Missouri, United States 🇺🇸
Collab with: 2nd Shift BrewingStout - Imperial Rotating
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Score
7.64
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Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
Pastry stout by one of Missouri's leading craft breweries (alongside Side Project, Moortgat-owned Boulevard, Narrow Gauge and others) and one that has impressed me on more than one occasion, so I have been looking forward to this one ever since I bought the can at DeApotheek three months ago. Apparently intended to mimic tiramisu so with Perennial's great skills in mind, what can go wrong? In any case this luscious 'dessert beer' contains not just the cocoa nibs we have already encountered in other contemporary stouts, but also actual chocolate sauce, apart from coffee beans and vanilla beans (and of course lactose). Moussey, greyish pale beige, audibly fizzing, loosely knit 'head' quickly dissolving into a waferthin greyish ring and eventually nothing - only a bit more stable than the 'head' on a glass of coke, as it were; pitch black robe with thin ochre-brownish edge about two millimeters off the edge, and thin patches of some kind of ochre-hued 'sludge' at the bottom when emptying the glass - not just yeast, but very likely remnants of the added ingredients. I have not seen anything exactly like this in all those years of beer tasting and I am still a bit taken aback whenever I encounter something as 'physically distinct' as this in any beer, even though in this particular case, it only appears in the very end and is less scary than some of the other 'visual effects' I stumbled upon so far. Indeed "indulgent" aroma of molten 'fondant' chocolate bars, hazelnut paste, chocolate cookies, some background vanilla but largely faded by now, milk powder, fudge, whipped cream, stracciattella ice cream (rather than tiramisu), Tia Maria coffee liqueur, 'profiteroles', vague background hints of brown bread dough, marsala, nutmeg, minerals. Very sweet onset as can be expected from the style, creamy but not overly sticky, hinting at candied cherries, dates and pear with a dash of very ripe blackberries somewhere, softly carbonated with very thick, dense, creamy mouthfeel - fat slabs of caramel, hazelnut paste and, above all, chocolate gliding heavily over the tongue, with the chocolate part being filled with 'fondant' chocolate bars and chocolate sauce made with them. Lactose sweetness rules everywhere and obviously increases creaminess a lot; more subtle impressions include pistacchio, fig syrup and the actually added vanilla, which, though clearly diminished already, is still very much recognisable. The coffee effect lies in an aromatically bitterish, roasty accent at the back, but it is not nearly strong enough to counter the sticky sweetness of the whole; hops too play only a supporting role behind the scenes but remain, as such, unnoticeable in the flavour. Lots of chocolate and cream, along with cookie dough and coffee powder dominate the finish, all highlighted by warming, liqueurish but - given the bold features of this style in general - not too obnoxious alcohol, despite the fact that its heat and wryness are, in the end, unmistakable. So is the cloying creamy sweetness of the sugars, though - making this audacious pastry stout anything but subtle. Pastry stouts are about the least 'drinkable' of beer styles, if you consider 'drinkability' in the most literal sense of the word, but this one is really cumbersome, to be taken in slowly and in small sips after a good meal, I guess. Very filling, very creamy and very sweet, this overly indulgent pastry stout does live up to the overall expectations surrounding the style - so I generally recommend it to the adepts of these syrupy sugar stouts, but for me it is just a bit too much; the sticky sweetness and heavy creaminess are exaggerated for me and I had to 'plough' through the content of the can in order to write this review. On top of that: I had tiramisu on many occasions in Italian restaurants throughout the years, and I am not sure if this very specific dessert would be the first I would think of in a blind tasting of pastry stouts - as a matter of fact I had Polish pastry stouts which approached the typical tiramisu flavours more accurately than this one. So what to do with this one? A thick, sugary, syrupy pastry stout the way present-day consumers expect it to be, that much is certain - so Perennial surely manages to meet their consumers' expectations, at least if they do not take the tiramisu intentions too literally; but for me personally, this is just too thick, sugary and syrupy, hindering drinkability even within the peculiarities of the style. Conceptually okay and technically well done, but I prefer any of their Abraxas variants over this any time, I must say...
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
A dink pour. Appearance: very dark brown with a beige head. Aroma: coffee, some dark fruits and chocolate, a bit of sweetness. Taste: very sweet, loads of black currant notes (not sure how come, from vanilla and coffee maybe?). Overall: very nice.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Can. Pours black. Chocolate, hazelnut, cherry, nutty, vanilla, caramel. Nice oily body. Good.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
16 oz. can at Chuck's CD, pours jet black with a small tan head. Aroma is complex, with lots of chocolate, vanilla, and coffee in good cohesion. Flavour is full of coffee upfront, followed by gentle vanilla and a touch of dark chocolate. Nice coffee character with enough sugars to balance. Excellent.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Can. pours dark brown with a tan head. Roasted malt, dark chocolate, coffee, vanilla notes.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Sample at the taproom.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Sampled at the Roost, sample pours a leggy viscous black, dark brown head. Nose is chocolate syrup and kahlua and booze and brownie. Flavor is heavy brownie and coffee grounds and cocoa. Full, sweet, sticky finish. 8 4 8 4 15
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 9 | Overall - 8.5
2022 can from Harvest. Pours a deep brown to back with a finger of brown head that lingers. Beautiful nose of tiramisu as it warms....coffee bomb with cocoa powder & mascarpone all present. Thick and full bodied on the palate with more coffee, cream and chocolate notes. ABV is fairly well hidden. Just a great stout all the way through.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Can - viscous black pour - slick mouthfeel - bittersweet chocolate, espresso, vanilla, blueberry - a bit of vinous character - pretty dang sweet, but with slight underlying umami notes - it’s pretty good.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 8
21 September 2022. At Perennial, St. Louis. Shared with the lovely Anke!
Cloudy black, thin, dark beige head. Aroma of espresso, coffee bean, fondant, earth, vanilla, chestnut, cigar, black olive, fried mushroom, coffee liqueur. Taste has sweet fig & plum in a thick dark-chocolatey malt body with toasted-nutty, brown-bready accents; bitter & sourish coffee bean and meaty-umami notes on the side. Earthy hoppy finish offering vanilla, espresso, tobacco and warming whisky-like alcohol. Full body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Very complex and enticing, yummy.