On tap at Ambulance, creamy chocolate mint entry lingers for bold 10.5% ABV holiday stout. Frango mint oiling deepens menthol-candied spearmint sashay while dark chocolate sweetness picks up mild caramel, toffee, vanilla and molasses illusions for decadent York Peppermint Patty knockoff.
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, thickly creamed pastry stout showers cinnamon-spiced gingerbread sugaring with melted dark chocolate treacle before emitting earthen truffle musk. Sticks to the tongue like heavily viscous caramelized mocha and chewier than toffee.
Fudgy marshmallow-fluffed brown chocolate sweetness rampages thru brown-sugared candied yam adjunct above honeyed Graham Cracker base of ‘toxic’ 11% ABV winter warming pastry stout. Creamy chocolate-vanilla center gains bruised black cherry, star anise and toffee illusions for perfect sweet-toothed nightcap.
Sumptuously creamed Irish stout (from Canada) brings baked gingerbread sweetness to sugared molasses sinew and caramel-burnt toffee fudging above contrastive coarsened hop char. Brown-sugared cinnamon, nutmeg and anise spicing deepens Black Forest-caked holiday spirit. Tertiary fig, black grape, black cherry, chestnut, hazelnut and dark cocoa illusions increase complexity.
Vacillating between a sweet oatmeal stout, a soy-soured Baltic porter and a dried-fruited Christmas bock, spice-speckled dry body allows oatmeal raisin cookie sugaring to infiltrate black chocolate-malted raw molasses bittering and sedate wood-burnt hop pungency. Fig and fennel adjuncts spice up mocha malting while miniscule walnut, cinnamon and vanilla undertones get whisked away.
Perfect molasses-draped Christmas dessert offering brings creamy S’more-like Graham Cracker marshamallow roast and Nestle Quik cocoa powdering to brazenly tar-like hop char. Chewy lactose richness fortified by dark-roasted milk chocolate, chicory-smoked coffee beaning, burnt caramel sweetness and light vanilla daub. Busy flavor profile never falters.
On tap at 381 Main, domineering brown-sugared gingerbread cookie theme gets lift from nitrogen gassing as chewy molasses-soaked cookie dough creaminess, supportive cinnamon spicing and dark-roasted chocolate malting underscore wintry full-bodied dessert treat. In the bottle, mischievous winter warmer loses some luster. Gargantuan gingerbread pinnacle fades a tad as vanilla, anise, nutmeg and clove illusions embellish brown chocolate midst and teasing bourbon nip.
Robust ebony-hued full body lacquers molasses-soaked black cherry, black grape, and blackberry fruiting to liqueur-like anise gluten. Smoked rye malting deepens chocolate, vanilla, and espresso expectancy above tertiary rosemary-thyme herbage of hearty wood-smoked oats-charred winter seasonal.
Middling dry stout celebrates 10th anniversary of Irish brewery with inefficient moderation. Oily astringency knocks back hop-charred coffee bean bitterness topping sugared oats spine and tertiary licorice-currant remnant. At espresso finish, black tar, charcoal, and pipe tobacco harshness take back seat to peat-smoked black chocolate-vanilla-molasses surge (bereft of requisite nuttiness).