I have heard rumors of Jester King Brewery out of Texas but had never had one of their beers until now.  My first brew of theirs was the “Black Metal (Farmhouse Imperial Stout)” a Sour Imperial Stout named after one of my favourite styles of Metal!  The beer pours a deep opaque black with a brown head.  The aroma consists of roasted malts, chocolate, anise, mild coffee with some milky qualities.  The flavour is of tart lemon, balsamic sourness, burnt malts, chocolate, coffee, earth, ash, anise and some farmhouse notes in the finish.  The alcohol content comes in at 9.1%.  This bottle was from batch #16 with a bottling date of 3, 25, 2015.  Sour stouts are still a bit foreign to me but being a fan of both sour beers and stouts I was able to really enjoy both aspects of this beer.  I look forward to trying out more beer in the Jester King lineup if I can work on trading for bottles in the future.

Commercial Description:  “It is certain that the introduction of pure yeasts into industrial fermentation does not constitute the crowning achievement of a system that is henceforth immutable. It seems, for example, that if the application of the pure cultures method has improved the average quality of the beer, if it has decreased the chances of infection, it has given us beer with less character than before.” – 20th century Belgian Brewing Scientist Marc H. Van Laer