“This brewery only release from this brewery in Fresno is really tasty” is a sentence I didn’t think I would ever get to type like, “when I saw his collection of Katana swords, I knew we were going to fuck.”

I initially was highly circumspect of a SPECIAL RELEASE from these guys since, their blueberry saison was an exercise in cyclopean terror and GENERAL SHERMAN tastes like heavy ropes of jizz shot onto a pile of wet pinecones. BUT OH BOY WAS I WRONG. This beer is really fucking good, and not a single person cares about it, just how I like my reviews: ESOTERIC AND UNRELATEABLE.

Tioga Sequoia Brewing, Fresno CA
7.2% abv milk/sweet stout

The commercial reach around:
“This elegantly delicious sweet stout was created to be the perfect dessert beer. We age our chocolate milk stout on freshly ground coffee, Madagascar vanilla beans, and toasted coconut to represent a similar flavor experience to a German Chocolate Cake. When you find yourself looking for something different, grab a Piece of Cake!”

A: This looks elegant and dances playfully, evidencing its sweet stout roots, ducking and dodging with beige foam that clings and drags like a drink from Starbucks, without dipshits writing tired screenplays on their Macbooks. The dark hues reveal milk chocolate browns at the edges that appears highly drinkable without residual sugars staining the glass or dragging ass all over the place.

S: This has a phenomenal nose of coconut, massive coffee, vanilla, waffle cone, snickers, and dry roasty finish. I was expecting this to be some C6h12o6 massacre but it surprisingly dry and toasty, with an almost mineral chalky finish to the nose that is oddly welcoming and makes it feel crisp and clean in light of the sweet aspects. Really solid through and through.

T: This leads first with the coffee foot in a massive way. This shocks me to no end because, I have searched HIGH AND FUCKING LOW for good coffee in Fresno. I looked at all the Yelp reviews and there’s a place called REVUE, that doesn’t even have coldbrew/kyoto/Chemex/v60/pourovers and THAT IS IT. So where did this phenomenal coffee come from? Surely not the Yuban drinking contingency of the 559, I can assure you that much. The vanilla and coconut aspects play in tandem cascading like almond joys and Kit Kats, but the whole affair never because too oily/sweet/sticky/decadent. The taste is more like a robust porter in execution because you dont get that sickening glucose/lactose finish that is present in some sweet stouts. It is so balanced and finishes long and toasty. Again, it is like a baby BA Speedway, a sessionable BCBCS of sorts.

M: This may be what carries the day for this Central Valley banger, the finish and swallow never lingers and its strangely refreshing in a segment dominated by beers with 1.040+ finishing gravity. The watery aspect kinda reminded me of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald but with a ton more going on thanks to the adjuncts. “THANKS TO THE ADJUNCTS” is another sentence fragment you hardly get to read around here but, well twist my nutsack, there it is.

D: This is highly crushable and sufficiently complex to avoid slipping into that ho hum Founders Porter sort of realm. This is an aberrant offering relative to the rest of this brewery’s catalog and I can only hope this is indicative of things to come. I think this was like 700 bottles but, I cant imagine people are hoarding or being covetous of this gem. The only issue is, I have no fucking idea where you will find a Fresno trader, their beer distribution is like Alabama-tier and I think there are like 5 traders in that city of 600,000+. In closing, BC’s Pizza is amazing, thanks Fresno for your top-tier Hmong gangs and exceptional coffee stouts.

Hey, for fun check out this site:
www.FRESNOBEER.com