Lansing Beer Festival 3.5/5

Side by side review with 2007 and 2017 vintages. 2007: Faint aroma of roasted malts. Taste has chocolate and roasted malts. Very smooth and lacking carbonation. 2017: Roasted malts with a little bit of chocolate. Taste has more of the roasted malts and some chocolate. Smooth as well with an appropriately lower carbonation. Despite the lack of carbonation, I like the flavors in the 2007 better. Too much age on it, but it definitely developed more character with the age. 2017 is a 3.5/5. 2007 is a 3.75/5

Nothing special. Cherry taste is very weak. Glad this was given to me instead of paying for this.

Solid stout. Pretty straight forward, no huge adjuncts to spice this one up. Not great, but very enjoyable. 3.5/5

Very toasty from first taste and nicely balanced taste.

Definitely picking up salted caramel in the aroma, but no coffee. Taste has salted caramel for sure, but it also has a weird sweetness to it. Still not really getting any coffee. On the plus side, the mouthfeel is a little bit better than the regular version. Honestly, I'd rather have the regular version over this. For being a coffee porter with no coffee in the taste, I'm gonna give this a 2/5

Mango and a slight hop presence in the aroma.  Mango, pineapple and grapefruit in the taste. Some hop bitterness, but not overwhelming. While not advertised as a New England IPA, it fits the bill quite well. 3.5/5