SSSSSS…..LOST ABBEY’S DEADLY DELICIOUS “SERPENTS STOUT”

You’d think with all the LOST ABBEY hullabaloo and logrolling on this site that I was a paid representative of the brewery, or at least receiving bottles of free beer in the mail. As my teenage sister used to say, “As if! You so wish”. That same sister is the one that bought and shipped this 22-oz. bottle of SERPENTS STOUT to me, another in a seemingly unending line of LOST ABBEY masterpieces brewed out of their San Marcos, CA headquarters. She will be rewarded someday in the great beyond for her goodness. SERPENTS STOUT is a massive 10.5% alcohol imperial stout, except like any Lost Abbey beer, it’s not quite that simple. Unlike, say, OLD RASPUTIN, it’s not simply an inky-black, coffee/chocolate alcohol bomb. It’s very much in the Belgian style, and so even in the depths of this cola-colored beer you find whiffs and tastes of fruits, honest-to-gosh fruits, like plums & figs & dates & such. At least that’s what was going on for me. Incredible head retention, very foamy for something like 4-5 minutes. Yeasty, chocolaty, and yes, a little boozy, but if you split it with another beer dork you’ll be able to keep your head about ya. Of course, it’s fantastic, the kind of beer where one gulp in and everyone’s going, “Oh. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That’s really good”. That’s all you ever really want in an $11.99 bottle of beer, am I right? 9/10.