Afternoon Beer Break: Left Hand Black Forest Nitro

Well, would you look at that – the Afternoon Beer Break has made an appearance again after a bit of a hiatus! Well, it’s been a week/month/year(s), so what better time to crack one open? Over by me, the weather has definitely turned a lot colder, which means my go-to’s start drifting away from bright IPAs and over to the darker varieties. One of the latest to grace my tastebuds was the Left Hand Black Forest Nitro.

As with all the nitro beers from Left Hand, you get that satisfying hiss when you open the can, and as you pour the Left Hand Black Forest Nitro into your glass, the bubbles drop to the bottom, and then slowly start drifting up. Once things settle down, you get a nice, creamy head on top of the glass floating over a very dark beer underneath.

Being labelled as a cherry chocolate stout, you might expect that you’re going to get clobbered with those flavors (or maybe you’re worried about it tasting like cough medicine). Fortunately, that’s not the experience here. The nose just smells like a stout, and as you sip it, you get faint notes of the chocolate and cherry in there, but that fades down to a creamy stout.

In other words, if you came here looking for a heavy dessert/pastry stout, well, that’s not what you’re getting with the Left Hand Black Forest Nitro. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a smooth stout that brings a few other flavor notes to the party to have for dessert, you’ll be well-served by this one. lefthandbrewing.com