Goose Island The Muddy

Goose Island's latest release is called The Muddy, named after Big Muddy.  It is an imperial stout "featuring AMPLIFIED SWEETNESS with LICORICE NOTES," as the label puts it.  Their website elucidates what that exactly means: a stout brewed with molasses, dark Belgian invert sugar and licorice.  Measuring only 32 bitterness units, The Muddy is minimally hopped by stout standards.

Full disclosure: unless it is Finnish salmiakki (or alcoholic libations derived from it) I almost universally despise licorice and anise.  I went into this beer fairly biased against it.

The aroma is not by any means bitter, roasted, acrid or in some fashion suggestive of hops or roasted barley.  "Amplified sweetness" was a choice phrase on Goose's part.  Sweet plums dipped in milk chocolate come to mind, with an obvious bent of licorice.  Belgian sugar is evident.  In short, a fire of sweet chocolate-covered fruits doused with licorice.

The flavor is a little less refined but more than serviceable.  Sugar and chocolate start the day off, with the chocolate flavors now leaning more towards dark (bittersweet) chocolate than the milk chocolate portent presented by the smell.  Sugar is still there, although it no longer screams Belgian.  By mid-palate an unpleasant chalkiness steps forward, though it doesn't last long.  The finish is a strange amalgamation of fruit, roasted barley and ouzo.  Oddly, the licorice/anise/ouzo/rakı flavor gets weaker as the beer warms, bringing out more roasted barley.  Hops here have a presence comparable to the environmental impact penguin droppings have on the Sahara Desert (zero).  I cannot pick the molasses out either.


In the past I have tasted beers brewed with licorice that I absolutely hated with every fiber of my being.  Compared to those, the licorice flavor here is noted but restrained.  An altogether interesting experiment with moderate success that I will probably buy again.