Name: Chicory Stout

Brewery: Dogfish Head

Style: Stout

Cellared on: July 2nd, 2007

Original Tasting: July 3rd, 2007

Aromas of coffee and chocolate hit you before tasting. A smooth and well-balanced coffee flavor dominates this beer. Very light for a stout, with a creamy mouthfeel.

Other online tasters talk about the presence of milk chocolate and roasted malts in their tastings.

Darren says: It is exceedingly good, fabulous. (I’m sure he would have said more, but he had to run off after two screaming kids at this point)

Six-Month Tasting Notes: January 25th, 2007

There wasn’t really anything bad about this after six months, but there certainly wasn’t anything good. Very nice smells greeted me after I popped the cap, they really gave me more hope for this brew then I should have. There were still flavors of coffee and roasted malts, but they were all taken down a notch. Not too much in the way of off-flavors, maybe a tiny bit of papery oxidation.

One Year Tasting Notes: July 27th, 2008

Here’s a beer that’s going nowhere fast.

The first bite wasn’t too bad, it had sweet malts and nice hints of coffee flavor. Unfortunately, that was it for anything positive in this brew.

Oxidative flavors, in particular a distinctive “wet cardboard” taste quickly come to dominate this brew. It’s completely undrinkable at this point. To make things even worse, there’s a sickly kind of sourness at the end. I think there may be some contamination leaking in.

Don’t even think of aging this beer!

Cellar Outlook:
I’m not sure if this stout has much room to grow, and a low ABV of 5.2% won’t help either. Best case scenario has the coffee flavor fading a bit, allowing the more subtle flavors to emerge.

Six-Month Outlook Notes - I don’t see too much hope here. I think it’s slow spiral down to no flavor at all.

Next Tasting: July 2008