Spoiler Alert! This one wins.

“You can really taste the chics!” Ben quips after his first sip of Dogfish Head Chicory Stout. Upon review, this means nothing, and was in fact a harbinger of the nonsense to come. This tasting of stouts was brought to you by Ben and me and only Ben and me. The pressure to keep witty banter aloft between us while maintaining lucidity nearly buckled my resolve to try all six high-powered beers. Fortunately I’m known for both my resolve and my ability to handle alcohol.

When tasting beers it’s wise to begin with the brew with the lowest percentage of alcohol by volume (abv) so as to not blow out your taste buds immediately. We tried the aforementioned Dogfish Head (5.2% abv), with high hopes for this perennially good and weird brewery, but unfortunately all we got out of it was a puckered face and a mediocre pun. The next was unremarkable enough to skip here. I began to question the prudence of taking this project on all by ourselves.

I was already feeling a bit warm at that point, which reminded me to follow my own advice. We took the next four beers out of the fridge to ensure we got the most of their flavors. The next stout was from Weyerbacher, a brewery I highly recommend. That said, this is when I began to suspect imperial stouts were just not to my taste. Old Heathen Imperial Stout (8% abv) was sweet with a taste somewhere between licorice and raisins. Dry hop back, but little bitterness — too sweet, like those soccer moms you suspect are popping Valium in the back of their minivans. It is a good beer, but not my beer. 

Perhaps unfairly, I already knew the next beer was mine: Founders Double Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Breakfast Stout. I mean, it really has something for everyone, and everything for me. It’s a sexy beer: no head, smells boozy. It tastes like how eggplant should, all dark purple, round and soft and smooth.

It’s complex — you can pick out each flavor in its name — and each component comes together in something new that stands alone. There’s nothing cloying, nothing bitter — much like how waiters should be and rarely are.

The college basketball game on TV had become surprisingly fascinating. The smell of our fifth beer threatened to blow my hair back like I was running down court myself! Whoo. Victory Storm King has 9% abv and is not afraid to say so. Way more of a hop presence in this than any others, but so much so that it’s almost painfully sharp. The taste is reminiscent of both cold coffee and Raisinets, and like cold coffee and Raisinets, the taste is divisive. Like a stripe of tape down the middle of my couch, as it would happen. (Yogurt raisins are way better.)

Our last beer was Oskar Blues’ Ten Fidy Imperial Stout. It poured like oil from its can, thick and so black it seemed to be sucking light from the room. I had to agree with one reviewer on BeerAdvocate who mused, perhaps after having a few Ten Fiddies, “Like a sexy simple black dress, this beer is working the glass.” Or at least, it made some sort of foggy sense after finishing this beer of 10.5% abv (hence the name — I figured that out this morning). I have only one word down in my notes for this one: “creamy.” It was damn good; let’s leave it at that.

We actually had a sixth beer to try in the fridge, but Ben didn’t bring it up and I let it go because at this point I too, like a good stout, was feeling pretty thick.