Beer is my hobby.
Sure, yeah, ha-ha, it’s everybody’s hobby especially at tailgate/Thanksgiving/family dinners/weekends/Tuesday evenings just because. But this is really, really my hobby. I brew it, from 4-week British-style ales to 6-month Russian Imperial Stouts, from kitchen stove extracts to heavy all-grain batches. I brew it, I bottle it, and I keg it in my basement kegerator (that my inexplicably-supportive wife got for me). I took a few classes, studied like I never did in college (I mean, this time I had a real goal!), and became a Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP)-Recognized beer judge. I blog about beer.
So, in response to a call for guest bloggers, when Audrey asked me to share my reviews of Michigan’s finest barley-based products, I nearly lost my saccharomyces cerevisiae. A chance to expand my hobby? A chance to talk about beer with other beernuts, without sounding like “this one time? At beer camp?” I’m verklempt… Where to begin? What’s the inaugural beer? Do I go for the latest choco-coffee-caro-syrup-laced porter brewed with mint leaves and catnip? Do I go simple-and-basic in celebration of beers that “started it all?” So much self-imposed pressure…
My search for the “perfect” inaugural beer ended last Friday with a phone call: “Noah? This is [censored to protect the innocent] from Oades Big 10? Your 4-pack of Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout is in. Come get it!”
Sweet Mother of Anaerobic Respiration! Oh heavenly elixir! Oh ambrosia! Oh, Founders Brewing Company and your amazing Kentucky Breakfast Stout!
I take the holy nectar from my beer fridge, and reverently place it on my bar-top. This big boy needs to sit for a bit, warm up, unlock those lovely ale flavors that cold fridge temperatures quell. And after what seemed like an eternity where the bottle and I sat staring at one another, whereby I nearly begged it to open, and it mocked me and said I must be patient, I grabbed a snifter. With shaking hands, fumble-fingers not worthy of opening such a pristine bottle, I nevertheless cracked it open. Satisfaction.
Coffee-black in my snifter, cool to the touch. A slight frothy tan foam forms the scant head on this lovely concoction like the foam on a perfectly-drawn espresso. It dissipates quickly, but leaves thick tan lacing down the sides of the glass as I tackle this beast of a beer. Pitch-black. Lovely. Seductive and satiny.
Immediately, without even having to think of flowery words: cocoa, bourbon, coffee, alcohol. That lovely chocolate hits right up front and lingers throughout the aroma to the finish; that lovely light milk-chocolate aroma you get when you walk in a place like Lansing’s own Fabiano’s. Mouth-watering, anticipatory chocolate. That sticky-sweet slow-burn alcohol of lazy-sipping bourbon simply enhances that chocolate flavor, making it into that truffle you’ve always wanted to try. Mix in a roasted coffee flavor, like how the whole city of Lansing smells on the mornings that Paramount Coffee roasts their beans, and you’ve got the perfect coffee-and-dessert combo of any choice restaurant. But this time, it’s all in the same beer! I’m giddy. My mouth will never forgive me if my nose gets all the attention.
This beer is impossibly tasty. To say that it is immensely pleasing is to understate just what’s in this beer. This beer tastes like a fine espresso with a shot of your favorite bourbon. That alcoholic burn, part from the 11+% abv and part from the very nature of the bourbon casks it was aged in for a whole year, adds spiciness to the coffee. Mix in a heap of dark, bitter chocolate, and this is like mole. Thick, spicy, chocolaty. Maybe from the barrels, maybe from the bourbon, maybe from both, your tongue is also treated to just a hint of vanilla; it’s soft, sweet, and the perfect pairing to what amounts to the best dessert I’ve ever had. And that lovely chocolate? That light milky chocolate? The taste, like the aroma, begins and ends with it. What a lovely way to remember each sip.
Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout lives up to the hype. In the craft brewing world as of late, too much focus has been placed on making the next massive beer with every ingredient we’ve come to expect from rich desserts thrown in. The amazing thing about this beer, though, is that all of these huge, complex flavors are in balance with one another. One begets the next, one compliments the next, and taken as a whole it’s as balanced as a Zen…brewer. As the beer warms (this one’s a sipper, folks), the bourbon flavor shines – maybe even dominates – but that’s not a bad thing on a giant stout like this. So many bourbon beers are so much bourbon, I’m left wanting for beer, as I’ve just had what amounts to a snifter of brandy. Big flavors mask either mediocre brewing, mistakes, or even the presence of, oh, I dunno…beer. But Founders gets this one just right. They make a dark, deep stout…shine.
