My coverage of the Black Is Beautiful beer collaboration project continues, with the version made by Marz Community Brewing of Chicago’s South Side. They are directing proceeds to the Chicago Community Bond Fund, whose goal is to end pretrial detention for people who cannot afford bail in Cook County.

Marz describes their variation:

We took the base recipe for this robust imperial from Weathered Souls Brewing and put our Marz spin on it by infusing it with coconut and vanilla for a sweet and smooth finish.

Our buds at Omega Yeast generously donated their special strains to help make our Black is Beautiful beer.

I picked this beer up in a 4-pack of 12 oz. cans from Binny’s Willowbrook.

It pours a not quite solid black, with half a finger of brown foam that sticks around like those Jell-o parfaits. I don’t get much nose out of this; could be my summer allergies. But after I start drinking it, I can pick out some coconut amidst a snootful of malt roastiness.

The taste is nice and smooth at first. Then the malt roast comes around to bully the palate. This finishes a lot better than the initial nose would suggest. It trades smoothness for some aggressive malt roast and alcohol. I think this is exactly what the brewer wanted to do, so a kudo for reaching that goal.

I have two more of these in my fridge for future reviews. I’m finding that a lot of these are going up as draft only. I’d love to hit them all, but I need to stay close to home for the heath of my family in these contagious times. Also, some of the brewers are putting the beers into barrels for aging, which means they could come out continuously over the coming months.

But once again, I acknowledge that my contribution to these proceeds is relatively small, but at least I’m putting my own money out for them. And I have a reason to drink imperial stouts in the hottest days of summer!

By the way, I realized I’m in my tenth year of posting beer reviews to YouTube under the “One-Take Beer Review” playlist. This is my 75th review, and my fifth of the “Black Is Beautiful” series. And frankly, the more I work with the iMovie software to put these videos online, the easier it becomes.