So how is it? Well, if my alcohol fueled memory serves, it tastes a lot like chocolate bourbon. Its an Imperial Stout, so the flavor is very powerful, but in the end, it has a very chocolate flavor. And because it was aged in Bourbon barrels, it obviously has that Bourbon kick.

I suppose it was one of those beers that would have been decent to age in the fridge. But if my drunken stupor and beer-satisfied smile is any indication, I’m glad I didn’t.

Maybe it was an old bottle (Whole Foods!!!), but the “ridiculous amount of barley” the bottle advertises amounted to a ridiculous amount of mouth abuse that not even even an evening of old Boones could wash away. Thumbs Down. 1/6.

Plus the wrapper looks like it would get very angry if you didn’t drink it. –”If you were a small  rodent, I’d be tasting you”

But one evening, a dear friend of mine brought over this giant bottle, claiming in terribly misspelled letters that it was brewed with chocolate. I poured. I cringed. I braced myself. I sipped. And I said… ‘OMG Chocolate!’.

This stuff is just straight amazing. Its almost like drinking a chocolate liqueur (11% alchohol – woot!). Its still a stout mind you, with all the subtle stout thickness you would expect, but man can you taste the cocoa goodness. And it’s fantastic.

The only downside to this stuff is because it is so sweet and rich, you really can’t drink a whole one yourself. Call this a “party” drink. Fun for everyone to have a taste, but too wickedly alcoholic to drink solo. Although the potential that they attempted such a feat when trying to spell the title would certainly explain things.

I had never seen this before, and frankly found it in the bargain bin of Market of Choice. I’m not sure why, but if I see a 6 pack of this lying around, it will most certainly become an automatic buy. If you can find it, I give a hearty thumbs up, as its now one of my favorite stouts of all time.(Sorry Black Seal, it was a good run)

And what’s with the deer-escaping-from-a-chess-rook logo?  The deer has a look of ennui about him, despite being consumed up to the neck by a castle turret while the ground to either side inexplicably sprouts wings.  Maybe he’s confident because he’s carrying a gunpowder horn around his neck.  What the hell?  At first glance the diagram passes for your typical old-world style coat of arms, particulary being rendered in black and white on a subdued beer label.  But it’s astonishingly surreal upon close inspection, and must be downright bewildering after drinking an entire six-pack of this stuff.

But I kid!  Before I make any more superficial, completely-beside-the-point complaints, let me just say that this a tasty little straightforward stout — no tricks, no bells or whistles, no chocolate or cumin or rutabaga.  Just a quality glass of pretty much exactly what you’d expect.  The randomness of my earlier comments attests to my difficulty in finding anything substantive to critique about this beer — Black Hart’s stout hit the spot in that coffee/chocolate/pleasant bitterness way of all good stouts.  Try it “Irish Style” with some smoked salmon in a smoky pub while it’s pouring rain outside, and you’ll feel a bit Irish, no matter where you hail from.  Unless you’re a deer — in that case, watch your step and keep your powder dry…

Wow! Yum! What a difference a year makes. It was smooth, thick, and oppressively dark. The flavors of licorice and molasses were there, but they have certainly taken the backseat to the excellent “stout-ness”. It also seems to have gotten more alcoholic during its stay in the meat locker. Either that or my liver has just given up even trying, cause … whew.

So now I’ve bought the 2009 batch. This year I buy more than one. And as I shove it into cold storage, I realize this is going to be a long year.

What? You don’t have any personal aircraft you say? Well, although I can’t really identify, I guess the next best thing you could do to satisfy that stout urge would be to head down to the local beer pusher and pick up a bottle of tasty Dick’s Cream Stout.

For me, stouts generally fall into two categories. Good. or Bad. So it was with much trepidation that I took a semi-aged bottle of Dick’s Cream Stout and gave it a pour. Much to my delight, I can say that this is now officially the “The Third Best Stout I’ve Ever Had”. It was smooth, it was tasty, and it finished with a real smooth aftertaste that didn’t have any hint of the charcoal tang or stale coffee “flavor” that plagues bad stout.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to fire up the helicopter for a quick dash to Oktoberfest.

(Incidently, this was posted from my cell phone. Technology!)

So — a stout, and a chocolate stout, to boot?  What’s more, a *double* chocolate stout?  I doubled up my life insurance before drinking, just in case.  Despite the implicit intensity, it turned out to be a fairly routine stout.  In that venn diagram of flavors that includes dark beers, coffee, and dark chocolate, this beer is pretty much in the muddled middle.  I’m not sure I could tell if there were chocolate in this beer in a blind taste test.  It’s not particularly bad, just didn’t live up to the Hershey’s-and-bubbles that I had been anticipating.  I really should have aimed higher, for my first beer back from sabbatical.  Then again, “aiming high” sounds dangerously close to exercise, and I don’t want to go through that again…