This one turned out OK. It's very dark, almost completely opaque. It has a subtle coffee nose. I still like the balance of chocolate maltiness and the hops. The vanilla adds a very nice front-end smoothness that is offset by the alcohol flavors at the back-end. I'm happy to report that using the swamp cooler seems to have eliminated the off-flavors that have plagued all of my previous batches. I just cannot get this beer to carbonate, though! It is quite flat. I upped the priming sugars from 3.5 to 4 oz. from the previous batch with no discernible difference. I'm wondering if the high alcohol content (7%) is damaging the yeast, though I've not had this problem with the 'Merican IPA of similar gravity. I might have to try re-pitching before bottle conditioning with the next batch. Still, it'll make for decent Christmas gifts.
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