Hey, careful man, there's a beverage here!

I was really looking forward to this Pipeworks release for a few reasons, not the least of which is the origin behind the name (if I have to explain that one to you, you're out of your element).  It is, as you can see below, a "White Russian imperial milk stout," which is to say an imperial stout based on the classic cocktail.  To that end it is brewed with lactose, coffee, chocolate and vanilla.  If I had known how loosely they used the term "stout" here I might have had a better opinion of it; as it is, while this beer is decent, it does not taste like either a stout or a White Russian, making this otherwise-worthy brew my first disappointment from Pipeworks.

You could be forgiven for thinking this was a stout just by looking at it, provided you consumed it in a very dimly lit room.  Once you see it back-lit, any pretense that this is actually a stout or a porter goes away.  It is, as Pipeworks says, a "white stout;" a bright stout, not the inky-black typically associated with stouts and porters.  On the plus side, the brighter color allows one to note the carbonation, which is finely-bubbled and generous for a "stout."

The last time I had a beer smell this strongly of coffee was Goose Island Bourbon County Coffee, but this beer actually most reminds me of Dark Horse Perkulator doppelbock.  It smells like cold-pressed coffee and not much else.  The vanilla, lactose, chocolate, and anything resembling beer are nowhere to be smelled.

The flavor follows a similar profile.  I taste a near-comical amount of cold coffee.  The malt bill comes across like a delicious blend of cherries and toffee---which is abruptly drowned in more coffee.  There is semblance of stout flavor here, and none of the other added ingredients (vanilla, chocolate, lactose) stand out in any way either.  I used to drink White Russians quite a lot, and I don't ever recall having one that tasted remotely like this.  The only aspect of this beer that resembles a proper White Russian is the sweetness and full texture.

While by no means a bad beer, it doesn't live up to its name.  I must give Pipeworks credit though, the bottle art really ties the room together.

Pipeworks Game of Jones

Pipeworks pretty much exploded in Illinois over the last year and the more Pipeworks beer I try the more I understand why (and the more I wish they distributed out east).  This particular beer is a big, beefed-up cream stout (a stout made with lactose) to which the brewers added coco and vanilla beans. I was excited to find this; compared to coffee and coco/chocolate beers, there aren't very many beers made with vanilla.  Pipeworks is a rare exception; by my count, they make six beers with vanilla beans.

True to form, it is as night black as a stout can be.  The slow, steady carbonation cannot muster more than a fingernail's worth of foam, probably from the fairly high alcohol content (10% is about twice the usual strength of a cream stout).

Game of Jones gets off to a great start with a rich nose of vanilla and dairy sugar.  With the exception of Southern Tier Creme Brulee, I have never smelled this much vanilla in a vanilla stout before.  It stands in complete contrast to the coco, which I don't smell at all.  Roasted barley (in the form of mild coffee-like acridity) makes its presence known as well.

The chocolate flavors come out much more in the flavor.  The coco takes on a dark chocolate flavor here, not the sweet milk chocolate most people enjoy.  That being said, Game of Jones has more than enough sweetness to go around without milk chocolate thrown into the mix.  That powerful aroma of vanilla transplants itself well to the taste buds, and there is a hefty dose of lactose as well.  While there aren't any hop flavors to speak of, the bitterness of the coco combined with the roasted barley---which again takes on a coffee bitterness, with a suggestion of licorice---provides enough balance to prevent this from being cloying. 

Per their batch log, this was bottled January 31, 2014.

This is the second stout I've had from Pipeworks and like the last one they pretty much knocked it out of the park.  This is much more balanced than that one was, and therefore I could see myself splitting a bottle of this at just about any time of the year.