Tuatara ‘black’ toasted malt

Rating:

image“Greetings stout lovers. At Tuatara we know your dedication to toasted malts requires no embellishment, so for you we have our brilliant, elemental BLACK. Using everything from Roasted Barley to Dark Crystal (yeah, that’s a thing) we’ve popped the 5-grain into the toaster to create a malt base of opulent Cimmerian shade. And to ensure you’re not losing out to all those pale ale bores, we’ve hopped things up a bit with buckets of Pacific Jade, Chinook, Citra, Amarillo and Centennial. It’s a big one, so don’t overdo it.”

Tuatara is a great craft brewery in NZ, and this latest installment is called ‘black’. According to the bottle 5 types of malts are used and 5 different hops (pacific jade, chinook, citra, Amarillo and centennial). This is a stout by the way. Similar to the delicious neck, the really scaly neck of the bottle also sports these stegosaurus-style spikes up it. Really cool. Poured into a tulip glass, it’s mat black with a brown head that fades to virtually nothing. Some lacing evident. We can get the roasted barley, also chocolate and espresso aromas coming through the strongest. Some molasses aroma here also. Can’t get a lot of hop aroma as the roasted malt dominates. Th flavour profile consists of dark chocolate, coffee, butterscotch, caramel and mild sweetness from the tropical fruity hops. What hops are missing in the aroma are made up in taste as there is a definite bitterness at the back palate. Mild, oily mouth feel with mild carbonation in mouth. Medium to full bodied. This drop has an alc vol of 7% ABV but it’s hidden well. It’s quite unusual to have such a hopped-up stout but we like it. This is why we love craft brewing; so different yet so tasty. We looking forward to trying the other similar releases because this is a tasty stout.