Founders Breakfast Stout

The other night, Feb 11 to be exact I went out to the local Irish Pub-type establishment to celebrate the 21 st birthday of my sister, 21 being the legal age to drink in case you forgot. This particular Irish pub (Dublin Square in Bordentown) had a rather mediocre beer selection last time I was there so I resigned myself to drinking Smithwick's and Guinness...Guinnesss? Guinnessi? Multiple Guinness stouts for the evening. Lo and behold I discover they have seriously revamped their beer selection and now have some great choices!

I started with a Rogue Dead Guy, on tap mind you, which is approximately 6.4 % ABV. I enjoy Rogue's offerings as a rule (the exception being the American Amber) but their proprietary yeast strain (Pacman) does impart a sameness to their brews that I've noticed. Dead Guy, if you haven't had it, has a nice creamy full mouth feel, a good amount of maltiness and enough bitterness for balance but not the prominent punch you in the mouth bitterness, the good kind. I noticed on draft the flavors imparted by the pacman yeast were not nearly as prominent as in the bottle. A solid beer.

Then things got a little strange. I ordered a Left Hand Milk stout. I've had it before, it's dark but not heavy, sweet but not cloying. It's good. I will not go into any more detail than that because it's not what I got. They hadn't gotten the delivery in cause of the snow. What the waiter offered as a replacement was Founders Breakfast Stout. I had read about this stout on line and I love oatmeal stouts so I said sure. My friends there are 2 things wrong with this situation 1) Founders is not comparable to a sweet stout and 2) this waiter was trying to kill me.

I liked the Founders, don't get me wrong, I reeeeeeeealy liked it. My family hated it. It's reminiscent of very strong, black coffee, with some flavors of roasted and burnt malt. Light on the carbonation but there's a good reason for that, it's a double/imperial stout (8.3% alcohol). So now that I've think I've had 2 beers which puts me at about .02-.04 blood alcohol content I've really had .......well more. Trying to talk to my wife I noticed my usual eloquence was marred by impediments. the next morning I work up and my stomach hurt like I had gone out for a night of binge drinking and I couldn't figure out why. Until I checked beer advocate and realized I had more alcohol than I had intended.

So let that be a lesson to you all; waiters want to trick you into drinking high alcohol beers for some reason or another. Probably because they hate you, but that might just apply to me.