Coffee Stout

Brewery: Nils Oscar Company

Supplier: Beers of Europe

This brewery is named after a renowned Swedish farmer who rebuilt the agricultural practices of his family farm. This farm still supplies the brewery, in their effort to be a 'Grain-to-Bottle Brewery'. This particular beer is made with fine espresso, using sun-dried coffee beans from Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza in Brazil.

Appearance: Nice, thick murky brown/black with a thick coffee cream head that settles into a good, constant, thin head. 

Aroma: Sweet coffee, chocolate and vanilla on the nose. A bit like great coffee with tonnes of sugar/vanilla chucked into it; this is an abomination to coffee, but this is beer so it works. Hints of iron when it breaths. 

Flavour: A bit watery at first but then you get that same acidity that is in really dark chocolate (80%+). This goes into a dark coffee flavour coupled with a rich dried cranberry taste that is coming through (a flavour often found in high quality coffee). After the flavours settle down there are notes of chocolate throughout. 

Body: Incredibly smooth at first, but once you get past that then you can notice the bubble right at the back of the tongue. Maybe it is the sharp contrast but the bubbles aren't totally pleasant.

Aftertaste: This is not non-pleasant side of the coffee part as there is a dry roasted bitterness that is too much after the lovely, sweet flavours before.

Overall: Therefore this gets a rating of 7, the bitter back lets it down but it is still a very good beer. This might have been better slightly chilled, even though I'm against chilling dark beers.

Price Range: £2.45 for a 330ml bottle, a fantastic price for this beer.

Food Pairings: Some German beefy sausage, those ones that are slightly dry and salty, that coupled with some wholegrain mustard would make a great accompaniment to this beer.