Fort Garry Kona Imperial Stout

First off, apologies for not writing in a while.  Second off, I'm fighting off the tail end of a cold so my sense of taste may be a bit wonky.

It's time for Fort Garry Brewing Co.'s second beer in their Brewmaster Series.  I was a huge fan of their eisbock, so I have big expectations for today's beer.  It comes in a 650mL brown bottle with 6.5% alcohol/vol and 50 IBU's.  The label proudly displays a tiki doll, putting more emphasis on the "Kona" part of the beer's name.  Near the bottom, it says "beer brewed with coffee".  Oh boy!  I suppose the best beers (that I've had) to compare this one to are Half Pints' Stir Stick Stout and Mill Street's Coffee Porter.

Upon opening, I was unsurprisingly greeted with a strong coffee aroma.  It wasn't as strong as I was expecting, however.  Upon pouring though, the coffee aroma got much stronger.  It formed an average-sized dark brown head on its ridiculously opaque brown body.  I couldn't even see through the beer as I poured it.  Any bubbles were completely undetectable.

The first sip was pretty good.  It tasted like the love-child of a beer and coffee.  The beer was exceptionally bitter, but obviously needed to be as it made my lips slightly sticky (from the malts).  The beer had a very soft feel in the mouth.  The aftertaste was remarkably like that of a strong cup of black coffee.  While the taste was like coffee, it was unlike any coffee I had ever had.  Most likely due to the Kona variety of bean used in the brewing process.  I will definitely have this beer again due to its limited production run.  This beer pretty much reinforced my conclusions that coffee-flavoured beers are not my favourite.