So there I was on a chilly January Saturday afternoon, planning to go to Taco Mac. I go to Taco Mac a lot if you haven’t noticed by now, but hey, if you loved beer as much as I do and lived right around the corner from an establishment with great wings and over 100 beers on tap, you’d be there a lot, too. Actually, Taco Mac got a little closer to me in 2013, as the county completed a new road between highway 140 and route 20, where the store is located here in Canton. This shaved a quarter mile off the distance I have to travel, and one can only wonder if Taco Mac paid for the road to get me there quicker. One can only wonder….

Anyway, the reason that I mention this is because on that chilly January Saturday as I was waiting for my ride to Taco Mac (don’t drink and drive folks), I noticed that Jeff Lyons of New England Beer Reviews fame had just posted a review of Peak Organic Oak Aged Mocha Stout in our beer group, Honest Craft Beer Reviews. You can watch the video by clicking the image above, but the relevance here is that I knew Taco Mac had this on draft, and after watching Jeff’s take on the beer, I was inspired to order it up.

Peak says this of the brew on their website:

This is an extravagant, immoderate beer. We mixed together our three favorite things – beer, chocolate, and coffee. A rich stout serves as a backbone, with organic black malt and chocolate malt providing a luscious foundation. During the boil, we add artisan chocolate from your friends at Taza. During conditioning, we add coffee from our friends at Coffee by Design. Then, this concoction is oak-aged, resulting in soft vanilla notes. We hope you enjoy this beer as much as we do.

Peak Organic Oak Aged Mocha Stout is an imperial stout as a base beer. It has an alcohol content of 8.4% by volume and a relatively low 22 IBUS, though the roasted malts here will make up for the relatively light hopping. I paid $6.50 for an 11 ounce draft glass, which is not bad in my book.

My glass of Peak Organic Oak Aged Mocha Stout, sold by Jeff Lyons, arrived a jet black color with a light creamy tan head formation and a big chocolate and coffee nose. This was Brewniversity credit 470 for me at Taco Mac, just in case you were wondering. The palate features a rich full mouthfeel, pleasing woodiness, dark roasted malts, strong licorice, coffee, vanilla, chocolate. In his video, Jeff was spot on about the spent coffee grind flavors, I get them here in a good way just as he described.

Mostly, though, I love the woodiness on this one and the way that it works with the dark malts. This beer gets 5 stars in my book, a wonderfully complex imperial stout aged on oak that would make a delightful dessert beer. Extra points for not overpricing, in a day when many beers of this strength are now commanding $9-$10 for an 11 ounce glass, this was truly a breath of fresh air.



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