Last night I took a walk down to Dutch’s for a tapping event benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with proceeds going to help fund the fight against blood cancers. For the event, they tapped all five beers of the Dark Horse Holiday Stout Series, 2012 Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Epic Brewing Big Bad Baptist, and Dogfish Head Black & Blue.

I started my tasting with Epic’s Big Bad Baptist. This is ranked as a world-class beer on BeerAdvocate and it did not disappoint. There was quite a bit of coffee flavors, so beware if you aren’t much of a coffee fan. However I really enjoyed the coffee flavors as well as the subtle tastes from the barrel aging process.

Next I sampled the Tres Blueberry Stout from Dark Horse on suggestion from a friend in attendance. I could smell the blueberry as the beer was being poured from tap. However, on first state the beer wasn’t nearly as sweet as I had expected. It seems that most of the blueberry is in the nose, with just faint fruit flavors in the taste to go along with the dark chocolate and coffee flavors. It’s a unique beer that is worth trying.

Finally I had a glass of the Stone Imperial Russian Stout, another world-class beer from BA. This was not nearly as coffee flavored as the other two, with much more chocolate and burnt malt taste. The alcohol taste is also more prevalent than in the others. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the Big Bad Baptist, but still a very solid beer.

It was a great event with some really wonderful beers available. As I spend a lot of time trying a wide variety of craft beer, I’m hoping to make beer a more prominent feature here on the blog.