Bells Brewing, Java Stout

It's a chilly Friday night, I have work tomorrow morning, so what is better than cracking open some delicious craft beer and relaxing. I felt like something dark and flavorful so I picked up a bottle of Java Stout from Bell's Brewing. I have been waiting for this beer to come back since last year when I missed its season by weeks. Bells has a handful of beers that it releases around this time that are released in extremely small batches and are supposed to be delicious. I was lucky because I found this bottle for sale as a single. A six pack of Java Stout will run you about 16 bucks, before tax. If you can, try to find a single bottle before you commit to a six pack. I feel like most people will either love or hate this beer, I doubt there is much middle ground.

Java stout pours an opaque brown, almost black, color. When I hold the glass up to the light I get almost nothing coming through. This beer is dark. It pours with a thin tan/brown head that dissipates almost immediately. There is a good amount of lacing on the glass throughout the tasting.

The first smell that hits your nostrils when you sniff this beer is coffee. They call this beer Java Stout for a reason. The aroma of this brew is roasted coffee beans mixed with the roastiness of the black malt. I got little to no hoppy aroma.

As far as taste is concerned, this beer was intense. On the first sip I got a little bit of sweetness followed by an intense coffee flavor followed by some bitterness from the roast of the black malt. Most of the bite that I got was from the roastiness of the malt and the bitterness from the coffee beans. The coffee flavor in this brew was really strong. It had one of the most prominent coffee flavors of any of the stouts brewed with coffee that I have had. I really enjoyed the roasted bean flavor.

This beer had a certain chewiness to it. There wasn't a whole lot of carbonation, which gave this brew a pretty heavy mouth feel and really enhanced the flavors. The after taste of this brew was dominated by the coffee in my opinion with a hint of roasted malt.

Overall I enjoyed this beer. I like the infusion of coffee beans with stouts, and I feel like Bells did a really good job with this one. I liked how the coffee took center stage with this brew. The combination of the roasted coffee beans and roasted malts made for a very interesting combination of flavors that assaulted my palette in a good way. If you like coffee and dark beer, then I would definitely try to find this beer. Maybe split a sixer with a friend to cheapen the cost. The only downside to this beer I could find was the price of a six pack. It may be worth it though simply because this beer is available for a limited time and is a really good drink.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have another review ready for you all. My Irish Red home brew is finally done so I hope to share my thoughts on that either tomorrow or Sunday. I also plan on brewing Sunday so I may do a recap of that also.

CHEERS!!!