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Name: Shake Your Stack
Brewers: Mikkeller Brewing San Diego, Great Notion Brewing (United States)
Style: Mixed-Style Beer (Base Style: Imperial Stout)
ABV: 9.7%
Review Year: 2020
Breakfast is served thanks to Mikkeller Brewing San Diego and Great Notion Brewing. Shake Your Stack is a collaboration imperial stout brewed with maple, cinnamon, and coffee.
STYLE GUIDELINES
This beer is being evaluated as a Mixed-Style Beer (34B), combining Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer (30A) and Alternative Sugar Beer (31B), with Imperial Stout (20C)as the base style in the context of the 2015 Beer Style Guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP). The most current version of the guidelines can be found on the BJCP website.
TASTING NOTES
Shake Your Stack pours pitch black like motor oil with a brown head. The nose is quite layered. Chocolate chip cookies and pancake poured with a generous serving of maple syrup are a given. Going beyond this, we noted licorice, dried prunes, and some coffee-like characters. Full-bodied; close to a syrup-like consistency. Sweetness akin to maple syrup is at the forefront with some bready character resembling pancakes. Meanwhile, low dark malt bitterness, black peppery heat, and chocolate combine to give an impression of Mexican hot chocolate. Faint apples, pears, and coffee flavors support. Whisky, dark chocolates, apples, and moderately low pine hop characters surface in the aftertaste.
THE VERDICT
Shake Your Shack shakes the palate with its delectable maple syrup and pancake-inspired profile. It is still a sipping beer at 9.7% and felt like it was brewed to be shared. For some, this dessert stout might be too sweet, but it makes it up with its complex flavors beyond that sweetness and that irresistible aroma profile.
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