So, this is what I get for daring to exercise.  A while back, I got the running bug (as I do every decade or so), ran a road race, overdid it, aggravaged a long-dormant case of asthma (not seen since high school), wound up on medication, and had to give up nasty petrochemical-brew malt liquors for a few weeks.  As my return to form, I decided to try a beer as close to Easter candy as possible.

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…