imperial mexican biscotti cake break

The details: Evil Twin Brewing w/ Westbrook Brewing Co. Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break Imperial Stout, 10.5% ABV, 60 IBU, served in a 22 oz bottle

I don't really remember when I first got in to spicy food. My parents are big on them, and I certainly don't remember them cooking with such heat. My dad would try things, but as best I can remember the most daring he ever really got was eating fresh jalapenos (with the seeds scraped out) filled with easy cheese. 
 
My baptism by fire really took hold in the fall of 2000. Newly graduated, working my first real job for what was an embarrassingly small amount of money, I was definitely interested in any way to make cheap food taste better. Enter what would eventually become one of my employers: Sticky Rice. A little sushi joint in RVA (also in DC and Baltimore now) that does a pretty solid roll, but more importantly serves tater tots by the bucket. They're brilliant. They only have two condiments: "tot sauce" which is mayo, sriracha, and soy sauce, and Sriracha. 

The beer we drank with all that was so very typical of RVA in those years. Some people splurged for the Kirin Ichiban, but the rest of us just washed all that down with PBR. There's just something about spicy food and light beer...

Which brings me to this week's beer. It is neither light beer nor spicy food, though I did think it would be. This is one of the longest beer titles I can remember - Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break. It's a collaboration between Dutch brewers Eviltwin and South Carolina's Westbrook Brewing. Evil Twin made Imperial Biscotti Break and Westbrook made Mexican Cake. This couldn't be a simple combination of the two, could it?

This imperial stout is brewed with what reads like a laundry list of all the things that people have tried in stouts: coffee, cinnamon, almonds, cocoa nibs, vanilla, and habanero peppers. Honestly, I think the only things missing from this list are ginger and honey (from one of my favorite stouts of all time). When I picked up this bottle a few days ago I wanted to write about spicy beers - Mexican Cake is definitely one of those that just tastes like hot peppers. I personally don't know why some people like that, but it's out there and people apparently buy them. 

But I have to admit, this collaboration really takes the spicy edge out of that Mexican Cake. I only taste a tiny bit of peppers in this beer. The major flavors here are the vanilla, cocoa nibs, and almonds. It does, for the most part, have that sweet vanilla cake taste - without buttercream frosting. I'm surprised at how much I like it even with the host of adjuncts in it. That said, I'm not going to drink it consistently because at 10.5% I'd fall out of my chair, but for an end of the night/end of dinner slightly dessert beer, it's pretty spot on.

The verdict: 4.5 out of 5 (on Untapp'd - follow me @slownumbers to see what I'm drinking!)