Herevana – Garage Project – Nitro Vanilla Latte
Garage Project – Nitro Vanilla Latte. I have an alarming amount of dark beers in the fridge, all something different and unusual, and all were very wanty, but they are not treasures to be saved. It’s difficult to pick one over the other, like choosing a favourite child, but it has to be done.
The Garage Project Nitro Vanilla Latte comes in a can, and is brewed in Wellington, New Zealand 🇳🇿 and is of the style that is Stout – Imperial Flavored / Pastry and comes with an ABV of 6.2, which is 2.3 standard drinks in NZ.
There are special pouring instructions on the can lid, what could go wrong?
There are many good things to have come forward in the last 10 years of me drinking and discovering beer, and one of them is the madness in Stouts, which is a wonderful and glorious thing. It’s not for everyone, but they are remarkable, and always interesting. Not always good, but always interesting.
The Pastry Stout variation is a lovely leap forward in style and substance, I have enjoyed quite a few outside of blogging about them, and you can check the instagram page if that’s your thing. This beer is just a “plain” Oatmeal Stout, there’s a fairly accepted and acceptable coffee stout offering generally, you don’t have to look far to find some amongst various brewers.
Anyway back to the can, the instruction is to chill, then shake then dump in grandly in the glass and watch and behold the drama. Sounds like a plan.
I can tell you that there is a prodigious amount of aroma in this, lots of coffee, and if you’re into cold brew coffee, you’ll be familiar with that lovely raw greeness in the aroma, it really is delightful.
The head settles to a lovely luscious thick creamy inches thick affair, I love a head on a beer, this is a contender fo champion.
I could sit her a while and just take that aroma in, it really is lovely. But to the taste. Not at all full in the mouthfeel, I was expecting a lot more. That aroma really does translate into the taste for this, a wonderful level of bitterness and a dressing of coffee and in amongst it all there’s a sweet layer of vanilla going on about itself.
That I don’t think that this is full does not appear to be an impediment to this, it really does stand as it, as a really nice bit of beer work, and is rather surprising, even though you shouldn’t be, that lighter mouthfeel means that this is much more towards to quaffing than sipping end of beer, those sparks of coffee, the twinkle of vanilla and that gruff low bitter make this almost irresistible.
The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 10 on the arbitrary number scale. This is somewhat similar and made me think of the Epic Epicuran Coffee and Fig Stout that probably started my love of Coffee Stouts, this is really top level beer work. I didn’t want to go the full 10 for this but how can you not. This is my personal take on this beer, this might not be my take on the beer apps, like Untappd (you can follow me there too. Where I might dial back that enthusiasm a tad. Make no mistake though a 9 (great) and 10 (awesome) generally mean “outstanding”, and 10 means you probably are missing out on a treat
Garage Project say : How do you like your coffee hit? Juicy two row malt, creamy rolled oats and roasted barley? Delicately sweet milk sugar? A cold infused freshly ground blend of central American coffee beans, perfectly roasted to accentuate their full bodied cacao flavour and delicate citrus acidity? Then rested on whole vanilla pods and finished on nitrogen for super smooth mouthfeel and luscious latte foam? Don’t forget to stamp your card.
I’m listening to Modest Mouse, who have a new album.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/0hnwu9WUcXrL23w5WPrbOX
Herevana beers are those I drink at home, I’m not at some beer festival, like, for instance, Beervana, but am just in my kitchen, usually, dining room table, sometimes, or outside, occasionally, where I can take an average picture and write in real time about the beer that I’ve invested in, both in a monetary and emotional way.
Philip himself.
A life just as ordinary 