As I still haven’t gotten my hands on the Michelob Sample Pack, we’ll start with the Top Ten Series
Black Chocolate Stout
Brewed By: Brooklyn Brewery
Brewed In: Brooklyn, NY
Type: Chocolate Stout
ABV: 10.1%
What They Say: On website: This is our famous Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, our award-winning rendition of the Imperial Stout style, once made exclusively for Catherine the Great. We use three mashes to brew each batch of this beer, achieving a luscious deep dark chocolate flavor through a blend of specially roasted malts. We brew it every year for the winter season. It is delicious when newly bottled, but also ages beautifully for years. (In other news, if I ever live in a house, I may have to try to age one of these for a year).
Website: While I generally hate sites that are entirely flash applications, this one is about as well as they can be done. The navigation always remains at the top and not a lot of time is wasted with silly animations. The only irritating no-no is that it makes sound and websites should not generally make sounds without warning the user.
Why I Picked It: To be perfectly honest, the first time I saw it was at an Albany bar called Cafe Hollywood and their specials board had a “try this for the same price as a regular pint” with it’s alcohol content listed. I like Brooklyn and I like high alcohol content for cheap money, so I went with it. Much later, I’d find it’s bottled form in the city.
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Presentation (5): I love the design of this bottle. I love the understated black and gold design that says you should take this bottle more seriously then the flippant colors and big B logo on other Brooklyn products. I love that the logo is smaller and put off in the corner allowing the name of the beer to be the featured player. I love that the label’s design is different than the standard Brooklyn label to set it apart from the rest of the brewery’s products. They couldn’t have done this better. 5
Originality (5): For me, most chocolate stouts taste the same. They seem to focus much more on the bitterness of the chocolate then the sweetness. Brooklyn’s is the first (and really only) chocolate stout I’ve had that tries to balance both. It’s remarkably successful. 4
Taste (10): Dangerous. It’s probably the tastiest chocolate stout I’ve ever sampled. If you’ve ever had a chocolate stout and thought about how it should taste… this is it. It’s gives you a touch of sweet and has a deliciously bitter chocolate flavor in the finish. It lingers, but not too much to be unpleasant. It’s good for any beer, great for a stout, and absolutely perfect for a chocolate stout. 10
Body (10): Taken out of context, it’s a very heavy beer. When you taste it, though, the flavor is so distinctly chocolate that you expect the body to be much heavier — almost like a Hershey’s Syrup — then it actually is. It’s heavy, but since it’s thinner than you expect, it feels pleasantly light. It’s perfect. 10
Efficiency (10): Brutally and viciously efficient. Barleywine and Imperial Stouts generally have some kind of flavor issues to slow down consumption. Brooklyn Chocolate Stout doesn’t. It doesn’t have the tongue-sitting bitterness of some Imperial Stouts nor does it have the sickly sweetness of some chocolate stouts. It’s alarmingly good, has no taste issues, only costs about $1 more than a standard six-pack, and can kill you. I honestly don’t know how New York hasn’t made it illegal (though I have noted many bars reduced the draught to 10-ounce pours). 10
Versatility (10): Yeah, right. 5.
Final Grade: 44 (of 50) – Great beer.
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