Dark, Elusive, and Nowhere to be Found: Brooklyn Black Ops 2010

Sampled: January 15, 2011

A good beer can be hard to find, especially in Tennessee. Brooklyn Brewery's Black Ops strove not to be found. Maybe it reached 1,000 cases – Black Ops barely lasted two weeks in our beer cooler at Grand Cru. The beer ratings sites gushed, the masses rushed -- it has become a frustratingly frequent phenomenon.

I took home two from our single case and in mid-January, my first date with Black Ops arrived. In a word, Brooklyn devised a stout unlike any other, with bourbon barrel aging and no fermentation until bottling.

Black Ops bursts forth with a nose of chicory, roasted nuts and milky texture. There’s a That’s the last of the sweetness, as Black Ops goes follows a creamy, viscous path. Black Ops definitely thickens; no one will mistake it for an imperial porter.

A sliver or two of bourbon barrel sneaks into the inky night of Black Ops’ body. A bit of effervescent sneaks in for a few moments, and then the bourbon barrel oak rises up. Those notes never overwhelm the palate, but the definitely grow in prominence. This is one massive stout, straining against its 11.3 percent ABV, yet never spilling into undrinkable territory. The bubbles stick around, mellowing the other flavors.

In its forth, I detect strains of espresso beans, toffee and the faint stab of chocolate. Now it grows highly interesting on the finish, where most stouts might be content with their complexity. With that bourbon barrel tail at the finish comes of a burst of fruit, some lichee, apple and traces of citrus, not anything I would ever expect in a strong stout.

As for the sharp, woody tones that often spoil bourbon barrel stouts, none appear in Black Ops – or Black Ops has silenced them. At this alcohol content, it’s simply the most drinkable stout I’ve encountered.

I will reappraise at a future date, with the hopes that re-fermentation in the bottle will give it more shelf life than a typical barrel-aged stout.

From this sample, I tasted the merit behind the furor Black Ops caused in its limited run. Brooklyn Brewing created transcendent stout – they just didn’t want to over-promote or even acknowledge its existence.