Today I am reviewing Southern Tier’s crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout.  We did our real beer float review a few weeks ago and several people suggested we use this beer.  I couldn’t find any at the time, but last week I found a bottle of it at a great beer store, The Perfect Pour.  They had so many great beers I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.  I’m watching football while getting a few things done around the house, so Chris will not be with me and I’ll be going this one alone.  Also, I was a little lazy and used my cell phone camera instead of my real camera for the pictures.

In our ongoing review series we’ll be covering the following 5 items:

• Appearance
• Aroma
• Mouthfeel
• Flavor
• Aftertaste

Here is a quick guide for the beginner http://indybeers.com/beer-tasting-guide/.

About Southern Tier Brewing Company:

Based out of Lakewood, New York they started operations in 2002 and have grown to produce over 30,000 barrels annually.  They were listed as one of the top 50 American breweries in the June ’07 issue of  BeerAdvocate magazine.  The crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout is listed as a Summer seasonal on their beer page, so I was happy to score one in mid-November.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/stbcbeer

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SouthernTierBrewingCompany

crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout 

Without Ice Cream

Appearance

Scott: Very dark brown, almost black in color.  The head lasted about a minute before dissipating.

Aroma

Scott: Unquestionable smell of crème brûlée.  I’m looking forward to getting a taste of this one.

Mouthfeel

Scott: Somewhere between a syrup and a creme with light carbonation.

Flavor

Scott: No mistaking this flavor.  It is a liquid form of one of my favorite desserts.

Aftertaste

Scott: There is a slight bitterness.

Final Thoughts

Scott: Very good, although not something I would have sought out.  With plenty of other stouts from which to sample I don’t see this one coming back around too soon, which is fine as it is a seasonal beer.

crème brûlée Imperial Milk Stout

With Ice Cream

I still had some Hoffmans Ice Cream left from our real beer float review, and as this was one of the beers recommended by the reddit.com commentators,  I decided to try this with Ice Cream, too.

Appearance

Scott: Well, head abounds.  Like the others poured over ice cream, this beer wants to fill the glass with head.

Aroma

Scott: I need an old school batman POW or BAM image to describe how the smell crème brûlée is hitting me in the face.  While the smell was there without the ice cream, the combination of the two has pushed the smell over the top.

Mouthfeel

Scott: Similar to the other real beer floats, this one has that nice creamy feel, compliments of the coupled dessert.

Flavor

Scott: High quality palate pleasure.  If you love crème brûlée, this is for you, but drinking this while eating crème brûlée may be overkill.  If you can’t have crème brûlée, this is a cold, second cousin.

Aftertaste

Scott: Seeing I finished the whole thing in about a minute, aftertaste is all I have.  Like any good dessert following a great meal, I feel well satiated with a pleasant “mmmmm” resonating though my mind.

Final Thoughts

Scott: If you get the chance , give this a try.  Ice cream and beer has been a new found pleasure for me, and this one is high on the list of those I think anyone new to the experience would enjoy.