Southern Tier: Imperial Crème Brûlée Stout

I tried this at Frisco today and have to tell you it has some intense flavor and aroma. So much so that without knowing it came from Southern Tier you wouldn't think that it was a beer at all. It smells very sweet, much like a creme brulee desert but is mostly overpowered with caramel smells. When tasting I got strong flavors of butterscotch, caramel, vanilla, and maybe a little coffee.

This definitely would be a great desert beer though it was a bit too sweet for me. The beer had to be sipped at first to get used to the rich flavors and sweetness, but was easier to drink once the palette got used to the intensity. This would probably be a good drink for some of the ladies who aren't really into beer but like strong flavored drinks like kahlua.

I'm very interested in how they were able to get those flavors into the beer. I would be very impressed if the majority of the flavor comes from pre-fermentation additions. There definitely is a creaminess to the flavor which I would assume come from the lactose additions, but the source of the strong butterscotch flavor is a mystery to me. Maybe simply the combination of the dark caramel malt, lactose, and vanilla are what provide the flavors. Assuming the label highlights all the ingredients (it may not), then this could explain the flavor partially because only the caramel malt would have been used to provide the dark color, no roasted stuff. There are some dark caramel malts available, so this is definitely possible.