The Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, NY

I’ve just started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. In the collection, Gladwell discusses how success is formed. He argues that much of our success is derived from our backgrounds, our chances, and much of our timing upon entering schooling, sports, etc. I really think the same goes for beer. Much of the success of a brewery depends upon the timing of opening, the positive reinforcement a place receives when opening, and the location which the brewery is based. If you’re the Brooklyn Brewery, you have to be pretty happy with yourself. You opened at a time just before the great Brooklyn Renaissance; you surely had a lot of great backers pushing for a fantastic brewery in the New York City area; and you’ve now wound up in the center of hipster/craft beer culture in a wonderful area of the United States. You were one of the Outliers, Brooklyn, but that still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep pushing the craft beer envelope. I’ve been up and down on your selections but I think I’m ready to make up my mind after trying another one of your special beers, this time on tap, the Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster’s Reserve Intensified Coffee Stout.

Seeing as that the only beer from Brooklyn that I’ve truly loved was their Black Chocolate Stout, I was expecting a heaping batch of delicious and toxic sludge when ordering something as ominous and devilish as the Intensified Coffee Stout. Pouring a glass that looked like a dark chocolate and beer lover’s dream, the ICS smelled like a roasty and malty pint of heaven. A heavy and dark-hazelnut brown head perched itself above the brew and hung around for the remainder of the pint. The taste wasn’t nearly as terse and boisterous as I was hoping for, with just a gentle waterfall of slightly roasted and creamy chocolate flavor touching at the front and smoothly cresting toward a finish of leathery and warm cream notes. The bitterness up front wasn’t overly high, but the end flavor made the mouth tingle for quite some time and got me thinking that this was a rather uniquely bitter beer. Subsequent sips revealed that intensified coffee flavor, with what felt and tasted like a dark roast coffee mixing in rather nicely with the laid-back chocolate splashes. Indeed, this was a rather tame beer, but in a rather toned-down, and, dare I say it, boring sort of way.

For something that gets branded with the Brewmaster’s Reserve label, and that also gets the word “Intensified” in its title, I’m looking for a rather impressive beer. This isn’t even one I can chalk up the shortfalls as coming as a result of being poured out of a bottle. No, this beer just wasn’t up to the standards that I think I’ve been placing on the Brooklyn Brewery. Yes, it was certainly smooth and inviting, like a hug from your great-aunt. Sure, it’s nice, but who wants to always have a hug when you can go to the best bar in the town and meet hundreds of your favorite friends and hot lady-friends over a glass of malty and alcoholic goodness that makes you feel ever more loved inside? Not me, sadly. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll let you decide–is this beer the outlier, or are we staring at a brewery that is an outlier all in itself? I’m getting close to making up my mind.