Brewery: Brooklyn Brewery
Location: New York, USA
Style: Imperial Stout
ABV: 10.0%
Version: Bottled 355ml
Source: Courtesy of R&R Teamwork

Ed sampled and wrote about Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout back in October ’08 and I’ve been keeping half an eye out for a bottle ever since. So when Natasha from R&R Teamwork got in touch with a list of bottled beers left over from a tasting event that were going spare, and I saw this one was on it… a polite ‘yes, please’ email was on the way back about as fast as I could type.

Black Chocolate Stout poured an opaque mahogany colour with a thin head. The nose was all about the chocolate, although the flavours were more mocha. Quite sweet, quite a chewy mouth-feel, smooth tasting and deceptively gentle – not so much of that overpowering alcohol-hit that Ed found off-putting at the start of his bottle – this one also improved noticeably after the beer had been allowed to stand and breathe for a while, even in the narrow tulip glass I was drinking it from. This was the Winter 09-10 vintage, so it was a different batch to Ed’s and I was drinking it quite young, which could explain the milder profile. And while it compared well to a few of the other imperial stouts I’ve sampled recently, there are a few I’ve had that have been bigger and bolder, but again, I was probably drinking this one before it really had a chance to develop properly.

All in all: quite delicious and one I’d be delighted to encounter again, especially if I could somehow force myself to leave the bottle in the beer cupboard to mature for a couple of years before drinking it. Many thanks indeed to Natasha for sending this one along!

Brewery: Brooklyn Brewery
Location: New York, USA
ABV: 10.6%
Version: 12 fl.oz. bottle

Most of our coverage so far has been confined to UK beers, with a couple of excursions over to continental Europe, so it’s about time we moved a bit further afield. So over the Atlantic to the USA we go. American beer gets a bit of a disservice over here, with the big brand lagers stacked high in off-licences all over the country. But like most countries it does have a lot more to offer the more discerning beer drinker, you just tend to need to put a bit more effort into tracking them down (provided the stockists are prepared to put the same effort into getting them on the shelves).

Thus this, our first American beer review and it also happens to be our highest ABV so far. Yes, you read that right – 10.6%. I’ll let the Brooklyn Brewery themselves describe this offering -

“This is the 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 specialty roasted malts. We brew it every year for the winter season. It is delicious when newly bottled, but also ages beautifully for years.“

The bottle for this tasting was from the Winter 07/08 batch; a quick check on their website lists the ABV as 10.1% so maybe the alcohol content has been reduced for the new release. Considering the name it’s no surprise that the beer pours very black, with a full-on malt and chocolate aroma with hints of coffee. This is all very stout indeed, it could quite possibly stand up on it’s own.

Initial tasting though is disappointing. That high alcohol content muscles in, and combined with the up front maltiness tends to dominate to the detriment of other flavours. The best description I can come up with is to liken it to drinking thin treacle. However, this is not a beer to be rushed and giving it some time after opening to breathe, say half an hour, improves the taste greatly with some hoppy bitterness adding to the by now well developed dark chocolate dominance. One to savour during these rapidly approaching long winter nights.