Last night my girl and I went to dinner with a friend of mine in town for a conference. I hadn’t seen him since he’d moved from here to Vancouver about 3 years ago and we decided on Addis Red Sea, a great little Ethiopian restaurant down in Boston’s South End near the Cyclorama.  Addis is a place we had frequented back in the day thanks to it’s vegan friendly menu for him. I’ve always loved the food, the atmosphere, and everything else about Addis, including its small but diverse beer & wine list. Well, the beer menu used to be more diverse. I remember when I first came to Boston a decade ago, this was the place, oddly enough, was where I’d had my first sip and fell in love with Xingu the Brazilian black beer.

     But times change and the beer menu has shrunk to something that lacks the original scope, but makes sense given the clientele. The list has been reduced to about 10 standard domestic & imported macros, Ommegang’s Abbey Ale, Tusker from Kenya, and most interestingly a few brews from Ethiopian brewery Harar. They offer their pilsner, lager, and stout, but in reality they’ve only ever had the stout, Hakim Stout, available when I’ve asked. Suits me just fine as I’m a fan of dark beers more than the other two.

     So I order the Hakim and realized that it’s actually a pretty decent beer. Sweetness is pronounced for a stout more so than even a milk stout. The main flavor is malt and a bit of coffee. There’s a hint of caramel, dark fruits, and a little bitterness, but not much of any. Pretty good mouthfeel if a bit on the thin side for a stout in general, but especially an alleged imperial. One could accuse Hakim of having a relatively pedestrian profile and that would be a fair assessment, but given the richness of the food anything you drink is going to pale in comparison. The Hakim does a nice job of complimenting the spicier dishes and balancing the savory with its sweetness. I wish I could get a hold of this in a liquor store in the area so that I could sit down and do a clean review of it.

     Addis is obviously not a beer lovers destination, which doesn’t matter because even if they didn’t have beer I would still go here because the food is amazingly rich and hardy fare. And you get to eat with your hands. That being said any beer geeks who find themselves there should give the Hakim a try if only for the uniqueness. It’s not a life changing beer and shaky under the imperial stout umbrella, but when in Rome. And if you don’t like it there’s always the Ommegang to fall back on.

Hakim Stout (5.5% bottle)- Imperial Stout- Harar Beer Factory, ETH
Grade: B-/C+

Cheers! John