Black Chocolate Stout

This is the first beer anyone totally geeked out on me over. It was a fellow faculty member at a middle school I was teaching at a decade ago, and he was positively giddy over finding Black Chocolate Stout in stores again (it's generally only available October through March).

Being an impressionable young lad, I went out and purchased a four-pack, and was impressed immediately by the full on flavor of flavor. See, up until then, I had been in college, and had been exposed only to the very finest light and chuggable "getcha drunk" lagers that New Jersey could offer. By contrast, the Black Chocolate Stout is a sipping beer.

My camera sucks. In actuality, this beer devours light.

First off, it pours an absolute ink black: a quality not well-captured by the camera on my iPhone, nor by the light-colored things that are reflected in the glass. I mean it - I got the sense I could write on parchment with this beer. In previous pours, I have also managed to cultivate a nice creamy head (with a color not unlike that of the head of a Guinness, but much more flavorful). Somehow, that wasn't happening for me today.

I smelled a lot of cherry and roasted coffee in this beer. Unlike many of the beers I've had of late, both of those aromas were present in the flavor beer too. But wait, as they say, there's more. I ended up getting that namesake bitter chocolate, also some lovely toasted bread and a lot of caramel. This is a beer with a flavor that lasts.

At 10% above, it's not a multiple-bottle kind of a beer (at least, not for me), and there's a considerable alcohol presence as well. I do find that as it warms up (inevitable, given how long this beer kind of insists I wait in between sips), some nice vanilla flavors peek out as well, and the heat in the alcohol makes a winter evening a little bit warmer.

Beeramisu and other delights

I don't cook with beer enough. Generally speaking, I'll happily crack open a beer while I'm cooking, but it's rare that the beer goes into the pan or pot, instead of into the chef. Chili is one dish that I put beer in. A few weeks ago, I made one with one of the Revolutionary Rye Ales I reviewed previously. My girlfriend thinks my chili looks too much like stew. She is wrong.

Mmm... Chili...

So when I discovered a way to use beer in a dessert, I was psyched to try it out. In launching forward to St. Patrick's Day, Serious Eats published a recipe for beeramisu.

Beeramisu, pre-devouring.

Take a regular tiramisu, swap out coffee for stout, swap out madeira for Bailey's, and you've got yourself a deliciously booze-tinged dessert. Instead of Guinness, which I find a little watery (I mean, hello, it floats on the top of a black and tan), I used Black Hawk Stout. On its own, Black Hawk is creamy, rich, and bitter, with very little carbonation. It's ink-black, with deep caramel and burnt sugar flavors, so I thought it might substitute in well for the coffee. Indeed it did.

It wasn't exactly easy to slice, but the flavors were nice.

The recipe I used from Serious Eats could use some tweaking: I'd cut back on the Bailey's being sprinkled over each layer, and go with more of the stout, as the final product needed a little more bitterness than a six-count dunk provided. This dessert got devoured, and rightly so: it's fantastic.

On a completely different, but just as delicious, note, I happened across three bottles of Coedo beer and was struck by how much these really looked like a Japanese knock-off of Chimay.

Japanese attempt at Chimay?

I drank the Beniaka this past week and was rather stunned by how nice it was. It's not the typical Japanese lager that makes one think fondly of Coors. Instead, it was a nice deep red, and had wonderful layers of caramel malt sweetness.

Apparently, brewed with sweet potato.

According to its website, which I will not send readers to because it is loaded with nonsense music and flash crap (google it if you must), "this premium lager features an aromatic sweetness in its amber tones [and is] a rare combination of high quality malts and 'Beniaka,' the roasted Kintoki sweet potatoes of the Kawagoe region." I'm not sure I tasted sweet potato, but I definitely tasted sweetness, and a depth of flavor I wasn't really expecting. I'm looking forward to trying the other two sometime soon.

Not for everyone

While waiting for a late-night reservation a few friends and I decided to grab a quick drink at B3, a burger and wine bar in our neck of the woods. Not in the mood for wine, I saw that they had an a stout on tap that I hadn't seen before, the "Breakout Stout" by Marin Brewing Company. The Bartender excitedly mentioned that his distributor told him that he was the only place in San Francisco that had it on tap. Curious, I ordered a pint.

The beer looked nice, it poured quite dark with caramel head and very mild carbonation. Given the nose, mild chocolate and coffee notes, I was really looking forward to a sip. The first sip was really quite good, I tasted chocolate cake, a mild smokiness and there was a mild alcohol finish. Pleased, I took a second sip. The sweetness vanished and what I was left tasting was alcohol, hops, and iron. My mouth felt parched from a strong, drying (almost tannic) aftertaste that was not at all pleasant. Although advertised as having "a long finish," I can assure you that this beer should not have been called "finished" at all. I should point out that I love bitter beer. Bitterness wasn't the problem with the Breakout Stout, but rather the acrid and tannic mouth feel. Nonetheless, having paid San Francisco prices for the damned pint, I was determined to finish it. After a while, the 7% ABV started to kick in on my empty stomach, and my dulled senses found the Breakout Stout more palatable. Not by any means something I'd order again, but palatable.

As I finished the glass, the bartender asked me what I thought. I explained that I enjoyed the first sip, but that the finish was a bit unpleasant. The bartender looked at me, seemingly dumbfounded, and stated dryly, "well this beer isn't for everyone." Personally, I think that unless you're in the mood for a bracing aftertaste, this isn't for you.

Gauguin

One of my favorite art history class moments is linking up the Gauguin painting "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" with the Calvin and Hobbes strip quoting that very strip. I learned two things that day: that Calvin and Hobbes were much deeper than I had ever imagined, and that I needed to learn more about art history if I was going to appreciate the world around me.

Used entirely without permission.

The turning of the calendar always brings out my more contemplative and reflective side, and this is no exception. I've moved to New Jersey, and I've had to grapple with the real questions of what I want out of life, and whether I'm willing to pay out the nose in rent to get it. Answer to part (b): not really.

So it's in that spirit that I review three beers that represent where I'm coming from, what I am, and where I'm going.

Where do I come from?

Just north of the City of Oxford is a town called Bicester, which is home to Oxfordshire Ales. A little over 4 years ago, I left New Jersey to attend Oxford University, where I converted dollars into pounds, and further converted pounds into pints. It was glorious. Oxfordshire Ales' Pride of Oxford takes me back to those summer days sipping session beers in lieu of library reading. It's really nice and beery, with a certain sweetness that doesn't feel like it came from malt (maybe even some banana esters at the back of the sip). It pours a straw-gold, with a very thin head, so the hop aroma isn't as pronounced as it could be. It's light on the tongue, crisp without being sour, and bitter without being astringent. Rather, it's very refreshing, with an aftertaste that leaves you wanting more instead of coating the throat and punching you in the head. At 4.2% ABV, this is a nice beer for a lazy day.

What am I?

Boston's own Harpoon brewery is truly a hometown favorite. Their Chocolate Stout is a jet-black pour with a head that dissipates almost instantly. The nose is redolent of dark chocolate, and the beer is creamy and rich in the mouth, with wonderful dark chocolate flavor and hints of bitter black coffee. However, its weird metallic aftertaste is a little off. This beer feels much stronger than its 5.9% ABV would suggest, and the bitterness is borne of the alcohol and not of the hops. As such, there's a burn in the aftertaste that makes this beer pretty good with actual dark chocolate, but not with food.

Where am I going?

Finally, I started my new job today, and Flying Fish's Exit Series of beers seems like a great way to start my new employment in Newark, New Jersey. Specifically, I'm celebrating my new employment with their Exit 13 Chocolate Stout, which attempts to channel the Port of Newark. Fair enough, since they're actually one exit off for the downtown. But whatever.

Exit 13 is dark and forbidding, with an inky pour and a thick brown head. Immediately, one smells sweet toasted malts and caramel, which is very promising. Flavors of creamy milk chocolate win the day on this one, with only a hint of maybe lemon citrus on the very tail end. The finish is dry, but not aggressive, and both the carbonation and flavor are smooth and full. This, I have to say, is a good sign: I think I'm going to enjoy New Jersey.

Good, Better, Weird.

So I've managed to find a few haunts for really interesting beer. Cambridge Wine & Spirits will even sell me a single, which is great because sometimes I want to try an interesting beer I've heard about (ahem, Dogfish Head Punkin'') but am thrilled not to have the other five sitting in my fridge for the rest of eternity. I also get a chance to find a large variety, ranging from things I've ogled on menus or old favorites I'm always happy to see again.

It's great to find Young's Double Chocolate Stout in a bottle. Usually, I'm accustomed to seeing this in cans, but bottles hold more. I'm already a huge fan of this beer. It's dark and well-roasted, with hints of malt sweetness and a deep, velvety creaminess.
The chocolate flavor came out a lot more in the bottle than in the can, and it's joined by sweet vanilla, raisin, and a curious smoothness (think Guinness, but with a lot more depth). I was reminded of a tootsie roll, and if it weren't getting so cold outside, this might go well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream floated in it.

Mussels, bread, cheese, and beer

Even better was the Ommegang Abbey Ale. We tried this with a giant pot of mussels steamed in white wine and aromatic vegetables. It's delicious, with beautiful depth of fruit, caramel, and a bit of citrus. Ommegang is a seriously strong beer (8.5% ABV), but it's a perfect bottle shared between two. The flavor is unrepentantly alcoholic, but there are a lot of additional layers on top as well: great yeast, malt, plum, and caramel round out a very rich and enjoyable glass. It's pretty aggressively carbonated, which has the effect of drying out each sip to a refreshing finish despite what was surprisingly sugary start to each sip. Ommegang is wonderfully complex, with a healthy buzz to boot. We found it to have gone really well with the celery and parsley notes of the mussels, as well as with the salty and buttery steaming liquid. It was also delicious with sauteed mushrooms and brie slathered on slices of baguette, but was rather wretched with olives. Just so's you know.

Werewolf Beer. Not good, but not bad. Lobster Lovers, to the right, is bad.

Finally, the weird. Werewolf is an offering from Lithuanian brewery Rinkuškiu Alaus Darykla. And it is, along with its sister beer, Lobster Lovers, a total gimmick beer. But given how totally crappy Lobster Lover was, I was really surprised how not-totally-crappy this was. Good really isn't a word for this beer: it's still pretty off. But unlike Lobster Lover, which was basically a 9.5% ABV combination of PBR and vodka (somebody get marketing on the phone!), Werewolf was dark, had an interesting malt flavor and some bitterness as well. It's tough to drink a whole bottle of this (the bottle had an extra neck-hanger advertisement with "8.2%!" emblazoned upon it) but it was surprisingly not crappy. Surprise food pairing: Lipton onion soup dip made with sour cream - the bitterness in the Werewolf cuts through the creaminess of the dip, while the malt accentuates the artificial caramelized sweetness of the onions. I totally bought the Lobster Lover for its ridiculous label (why yes, I read Above The Law), and now this. A quick (and haphazard) perusal of their English website mentions neither of these abominations: apparently they are for idiot Americans only.

I should mention, incidentally, The Daily Beast's list of the 50 least fattening beers. None of these beers is worth drinking. Ever. Ew.