Founders Breakfast Stout

Let's look back at something I wrote in January, 2005, Founders Breakfast Stout, from a bottle sample, which I'm enjoying on tap right about now:

A picture of a bottle consumed in 2018 replaces the
previous pic, one from a glass off the tap at the Blue
Nile in 2011.

I'm having this bottle with leftovers from dinner, but it is 4:30 am, so that's close enough to call it breakfast, right?(Funny how what began as a common joke, "Oatmeal stout? You should have it for breakfast!" is now coming into it's own as an individual style.)
Enough with the whimsy, time for the beer!

Founders Breakfast Stout, 8.3% ABV, 60 IBU. Founders Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, MN.

This one is just what I need now, as the sub-zero wind-chill and the weather in general puts that witches teat to shame, and summarily lays waste to the well-digger's bum. I need something warm, rich and fortifying...is this it?

Pours out a thick, impenetrable blackness, solid ebon, with slight ruby highlights at the foot of the glass. Head is mighty, massive, twisting slowly down to a most 1/2 ",burnt-toast brown, like chocolate shavings mingled with coffee grounds.

Aroma is right on for the style and then some. Espresso is featured first, then chocolate, roasty all the way, gritty and earthy, rich and thick...a coffee stout that nears an Imperial. Almost like what happened the last time I mixed Bell's Java Stout with Expedition ...almost.

Velvety feel on the tongue, almost magical the way this warmed-up stout lightly lays over the senses, drifting it's wonder throughout the mouth. Hops up front, rich coffee texture, tangible in the mouthfeel, a little hot and spicy, backed up by prodigious malt. Full-bodied, with a long, cocoa-coffee finish, plays delicately on the tongue, but lingers long.

This is a very satisfying stout, one that meets almost all of my expectations. I have had coffee stouts with bigger coffee flavor, though, and oatmeals that are smoother and more richly rewarding, as well as chocolate stouts that bring that flavor in full force...this is a very accomplished blend of the three sub-styles of stout, it succeeded in it's mission quite well, which is to make me consider having this in my coffee cup every morning, inside of the usual dark roast Columbian!

Damned good.
Another impressive offering from Founders, and another very attractive label, even if it does suggest that a child has been consuming the product...watch for for the Grand Rapids Board of Health and Human Services, guys.

The coffee lover’s consummate beer. Brewed with an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, and Sumatra and Kona coffee, this stout has an intense fresh-roasted java nose topped with a frothy, cinnamon-colored head that goes forever.