Name: Southern Tier Warlock
Style: Imperial Stout
IBU: 25
ABV: 8.6%
“Imperial stout brewed with pumpkins Warlock is brewed to enchant your palate on its own and also to counterpoint our Imperial Ale, Pumking. Make your own black magic by carefully pouring this Imperial Stout into a goblet.
Dark and mysterious, the Blackwater Series is serious about high gravity. Reanimate your senses with Warlock’s huge roasted malt character, moderate carbonation and spicy pumpkin pie aroma.”
A couple weeks ago, I reviewed the ever popular pumpkin beer from Southern Tier, Pumpking; this week I thought I would review their less known pumpkin beer Warlock. While Pumking is a traditional spiced pumpkin beer, Warlock is a big imperial stout featuring roasted dark malts. Warlock is part of Southern Tier’s Blackwater series filled with other high gravity imperial stouts that also feature big dark roasted malts and interesting extra ingredients like chocolate, crème brûlée and coffee. Let’s dig into this one as we get ready for Halloween.
The beer pours a beautiful dark black with about 3/4 of an inch of brownish white head. The nose smells like fresh pumpkin bread out of the oven with hints of pumpkin, dark chocolate malts, cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice. The mouth is much like the nose lots of dark chocolatey malts with pumpkin spice and sweetness. The pumpkin and chocolate linger on the palate momentarily, as you get a hint of booziness. The mouthful is surprisingly light for the high gravity of the beer, which I would like to see a little more full with the booziness. Overall, this is a great changeup to many of the other pumpkin beers on the market, it doesn’t have the in your face pumpkin flavor of most the pumpkin beers on the market and instead has stouts should let the malts do the talking. The beer is very smooth and easy drinking, if you have a sweet tooth, it is a beer I would recommend trying as a float with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you are looking for a beer to get you into the Halloween spirt, this should be the beer to do it. Cheers!
