On an Expedition
Bell’s Expedition Stout
A- / 4.25
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | drink: 4.5
Poured from a 1+ year old cellar temperature bottle into a Delerium Tremens snifter. It is an opaque, dark brown liquid with a small head of tan foam and bubbles. I can see bubbles popping on top of the foam. There is no light penetration. Swirling the beer produces a bit of a film and a very good foam coating. The head has now settles to just a skim of foam. It’s a pretty beer, but I’ve seen better looking RISes. I can smell roasted malts, alcohol, caramel and some chocolate. Even with all of these candy scents, it doesn’t smell overly sweet. This is a tasty stout. Creamy milk chocolate and a few dark roasted malts greet my tongue as soon as I sip. Some bitterness moves in aa I swallow. It’s akin to dark chocolate, but not quite the same. Prehaps the year of aging has made the bitterness harder to identify? Also present in the finish and moreso in the aftertaste is a bit of alcohol burn. It is hot, but not exclusively in an alcoholic sense; it’s also ever so slightly peppery. The alcohol flavors aren’t too strong, but are certainly present. I imagine that the year of age has mellowed this flavor out as well. After swallowing, I can run my tongue over my mouth and pick up more chocolate and alcohol flavors. The Expedition leaves behind a persistent coat. It has lower levels of carbonation and is full-bodied. For a 10%+ ABV stout, this beer is pretty drinkable. I wouldn’t have more than one bottle of this, but each swallow goes down very well. If you can get your hands on some of this, I would highly recommend putting a few bottles in your cellar for a year or more.
