Recipe and Brewday here.
I give my beers more than enough time to carbonate and sometimes even more after I've bottled them. I sometimes do this when I know I've made a high gravity beer and therefore give it some time to mellow out.
The Foreign Extra Stout is one such beer. Its been six weeks since I bottled it and I decided to have a tasting.
The slow hiss as I opened the bottled indicated a well carbonated beer. As I poured the stout, a big thick, strong, tan head formed and I had to stop pouring to allow it to settle down. After a few minutes, the head receded slightly and I continued pouring slowly till I had a full glass.
I took a sniff of the beer before placing it to take a snap and it immediately gave away dark, burnt notes. I waited for a few minutes and then took in a more deeper breath and this time it was better. The dark notes still floated around, but it gave way to some caramel (probably from the Crystal 120 and Crystal 80) and then some of those chocolate and coffee aromas. The chocolate and coffee aromas were late on the nose but it was very much there.
Around the mouth of the glass, there were faint shades of dark rubies and this was the only color I could make out other than the strong pitch black that ran through the beer.
Later, I sipped some of the stout. My first thoughts were that this beer was satisfying. It didnt have a creamy head like a stout on nitro, but the beer was strong, slightly boozy, with bitterness that stood out almost at par with the other characteristics of the beer.
While brewing, just before the hot break, I leaned into the boil kettle and took a whiff and that was the same aroma that filled my nose each time I took a sip. The malt backbone existed but it was toned down and not as strong as I wanted for a beer of this nature.
Subsequent sips brought all the flavours together and I must say that the stout turned out to be a beer I finished quickly.
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