Morning Delight’s extreme rarity and near-perfect ratings—consistently scoring above 4.8 on Untappd and holding a permanent spot in BeerAdvocate’s all-time Top 10—have turned every limited bottle or draft release into a frenzied event. Bottles originally sold for around $30–40 at the brewery, but secondary-market prices quickly soared into the hundreds (and occasionally thousands) of dollars, cementing its status as a “white whale” for stout collectors. Toppling Goliath now releases it roughly once a year in extremely small batches, usually alongside barrel-aged variants like Assassin, Double Barrel Assassin, or Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout, making a beer many consider Morning Delight’s even more legendary cousin. For most beer enthusiasts, landing a pour of Morning Delight remains a bucket-list experience that defines the upper limits of the modern imperial stout category.
Toppling Goliath’s Morning Delight, the acclaimed imperial stout known for its rich espresso, maple syrup, and chocolate notes, has earned multiple gold medals at the U.S. Open Beer Championship, cementing its status as a perennial favorite in the specialty stout category. In 2018, it claimed gold in the non-traditional wood-aged strong stout division, showcasing its innovative blend of coffee and maple that set it apart early in its release history. This victory highlighted the beer’s explosive flavors and helped propel Toppling Goliath to broader recognition among craft beer enthusiasts.
The stout continued its winning streak with a gold medal in the Imperial Stout Specialty category at the 2019 U.S. Open Beer Championship, where it outperformed a field of highly competitive entries with its velvety texture and balanced sweetness. Morning Delight returned triumphantly in 2021, securing another gold in the same Imperial Stout Specialty class as part of Toppling Goliath’s sweep that year, which included four golds overall and named the brewery the Grand National Champion. These accolades underscore the beer’s consistent excellence and its role in elevating the breakfast stout sub-style to elite levels.
Toppling Goliath Brewing
Toppling Goliath Brewing Company, founded in 2009 by Clark and Barbara Lewandoski in the small northeast Iowa town of Decorah (population ~8,000), has grown from a humble 10-gallon nano-brewery in the back of a homebrew shop into one of the most celebrated and influential craft breweries in the world. What started as Clark brewing small batches while working full-time as a teacher quickly exploded after early hop-forward beers like PseudoSue (a single-hop Citra pale ale) and Pompeii (a Mosaic IPA) earned perfect or near-perfect scores online and ignited a cult following. By 2014, the brewery’s reputation for world-class IPAs and massive barrel-aged stouts forced a rapid expansion, moving into a 36,000-square-foot production facility in 2018 that still struggles to keep up with demand.
Today Toppling Goliath is synonymous with two very different but equally legendary styles: pristine, juice-bomb hazy IPAs (King Sue, Fire, Skulls & Money, Term Oil series) that helped define the modern Northeast-style IPA movement, and ultra-luxe imperial stouts (Morning Delight, Assassin, Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout, SR-71) that routinely rank among the highest-rated beers on the planet. Despite the hype and secondary-market frenzy, the brewery remains fiercely independent and rooted in Decorah, releasing most of its coveted bottles and cans only at the taproom or through limited local distribution. Repeated Grand National Champion wins at the U.S. Open Beer Championship and a trophy case full of GABF and World Beer Cup medals have solidified Toppling Goliath’s place as a Midwestern powerhouse that consistently punches far above its small-town weight.
Toppling Goliath Brewing
1600 Prosperity Road
Decorah, IA 52101
Phone:(563) 387-6700
Website: www.tgbrews.com