Brewery: Kiuchi Brewery

Name: Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout

Style: American Imperial stout

Origin: Japan

Bottle: 11.2 fl. oz

ABV: 7%

Appearance: an impenetrable deep brown with a 1/5” but thinning khaki hued crown on top.

Pours: with the easy languidity of a stout or lazy river. It’s in no hurry to get to your glass, it’ll get there when it gets there.

Smell: I’m getting a scent of molasses and (Boston) brown bread

Taste: The Sharpness of espresso accentuates the typical stout sourness, which is offset by its rather heavy body. Elsewise I’m getting toffee or blackstrap more than coffee really. This needs something low, slow hard, and grinding, with prominent electric guitars and bass pounding out their lowest chords. ‘She’s so Heavy’ by the Beatles or better yet something in the same vein but more metal.

Mouthfeel: This one is honey thick, an almost gravy like consistency on the tongue but offset by the sharpness of it’s flavor.

Rating: 7.0 The body needs help from the taste to not be such a turgid lump in the mouth; The taste needs the solidity of the body to help curb its sourness from becoming too overriding. Most times they help each other out. And sometimes not do much. It’s not a bad beer, but as the days pass and I reflect back on it, in the end it’s just another overly thick and sour Stout.