Cacao nibs are the detail worth holding onto here. Corporate Ladder Brewing Company has brought back Vile Maxim, a 12 percent imperial stout brewed with coconut and cacao nibs. Nibs are not the same tool as chocolate. They are the roasted cocoa bean cracked into pieces before any sugar or conching enters the picture, and that leaves them bitter, dry, and roasty rather than sweet. In a beer this size they push back against the malt instead of piling onto it.
The coconut supplies what the nibs deliberately withhold. The brewery describes the beer as layering rich cacao and coconut over a big imperial stout base, and sums it up as dark, indulgent, and "very much not interested in subtlety." At 12 percent that reads less as a boast than as a fair warning.
Coconut is turning into something of a house ingredient at the Palmetto, Florida brewery. It appeared earlier this month in Barrel Aged Banoconut Pie, where it sat alongside banana, vanilla, and cinnamon in a beer that had spent nearly three years in bourbon barrels. Vile Maxim takes the simpler route: two additions, no barrel, and a base strong enough that neither one has to shout.
The name is of a piece with the rest of the lineup. Corporate Ladder builds its branding out of office vocabulary: Overtime for its heaviest-fruited releases, Share Holder Stout for its bottle club. Vile Maxim arrives with a can covered in dollar bills and ransom-note lettering.
It is pouring on draft at the Palmetto taproom now, and going out in 16oz two-packs to go at $24.
Source & Editorial
JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.