Old Growth Stout

Let me just get this out of the way; this is a damn fine beer. It’s the Old Growth Stout by Caldera, and with my friend Fuz, it took us about 3 minutes to figure out what was going on there.
This beer smelled like a chocolate malt, and tasted freakishly good–but nothing like I would have expected a stout to taste. There were cinnamon flavors all in the middle, surrounded by lavender notes in the front end, and a dryness on the back end. Finally, Fuz exclaimed, “It’s like Mexican hot chocolate!”
And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t just like that. I found out later that the dryness on the back end came from the addition of peppercorns to the brew, and that’s on top of it being a very dense stout. This was the kind of beer I could stick a spoon into an expect it to stand up.
This was one hell of a good stout, and quite strong; two pints of this, and I would’ve been well into my buzz for the evening. Because of the delicious array of flavors, I found myself drinking this beer a little faster than I would have; I was ready for my next beer well before anyone else was finished. As an interesting compliment to this beer, Alodie ordered a raspberry lambic, which Fuz and I had sips of in between this stout; it was as bit like having raspberry sauce with a slice of a dark chocolate mousse.
Now, Fuz and I have since returned to the pub to have another pint of this amazing beer. It hadn’t changed. Still an excellent beer. Fuz had the Six River Raspberry Lambic to follow it up, and once again reported it to be a very fine compliment.
Which is a little strange for beer; usually it gets paired with food, not another drink, but when you have an uncommon beer, I suppose oddity is to be expected.