Most seasonal returns are a matter of the calendar. This one, Gigantic Brewing Company suggests, is closer to a matter of public pressure. Tierra Del Stout is back for stout season, and the brewery's framing is that it comes back every year largely because people would be annoyed if it did not.

The beer is a Mexican hot chocolate stout at 7.2 percent, brewed with chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and guajillo and ancho chiles. Gigantic describes it as rich, roasty, chocolatey and a little spicy. It is beer number 129 in the brewery's long-running series of limited artist and artisan releases, with can artwork by Scott Hove.

The inspiration is unusually specific for a flavored stout. Gigantic traces the beer to the Oaxacan mole served at Tierra del Sol, the Portland restaurant run by chef Amalia Sierra, which began as a food cart at Portland Mercado in 2015 and now operates two locations in the city. Rather than reaching for a generic idea of Mexican hot chocolate, the brewery started from a dish it could point at.

That shows in the chile selection. Guajillo and ancho are two of the standard building blocks of mole, and both are mild. Guajillo is bright and slightly tart, ancho is a dried poblano with a sweet, smoky, raisin-like quality. Neither variety is chosen for heat, which suggests the chiles here are doing structural work alongside the chocolate and cinnamon rather than supplying a burn. It would sit well next to something sweet and dense at the end of a meal, or beside the mole that prompted it in the first place.

Gigantic says Tierra Del Stout arrives on tap and in cans very soon.

Editor’s Take

Naming the chiles is the move here. Plenty of beers list a vague 'blend of chiles' and leave you to find out whether that means warmth or an ambush. Gigantic specifies guajillo and ancho, which is the same pair that turns up in mole recipes across Mexico, and neither is there for heat. Guajillo brings a tangy, faintly berryish brightness. Ancho is a dried poblano and goes the other way, sweet and raisiny and a little smoky. Between them you get depth and a slow warmth rather than a spike.

What that does to a chocolate stout is almost suspiciously tidy. Roasted malt already sits in the same register as dried chile, all that dark fruit and toast, so the chiles are not fighting the beer so much as finishing a sentence it had already started. Add cinnamon and vanilla and the whole thing stops being a stout with chiles in it and becomes an actual reconstruction of a drink.

It is also beer number 129 in Gigantic's limited artist series, which means it has been coming back long enough to have a history. Some beers earn their annual return by being good. This one appears to have earned it by people refusing to shut up about it, which is a better endorsement than anything a brewery could write itself.

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.

Tierra Del Stout Builds a Beer Out of an Oaxacan Mole Recipe

A stout that traces back to a specific mole at a specific Portland restaurant, carrying chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and two named chiles. Gigantic brings it back every stout season because people ask.

Source & Editorial