Weightlifting Practice? No, just Drink and Enjoy!
Written: Jan 08 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Full, rich body is incredible!
Cons: It's not brewed year round!
The Bottom Line: An outstanding stout, plain and simple
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout |
Located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, the Brooklyn Brewery is one of the state’s premiere brewing operations. It was opened in 1987 and it produces 7 year- round brews along with several seasonal offerings. The beer I’m going to review today is a winter seasonal. It’s called Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, a rich, thick, full- bodied beer.
Basic Characteristics of This Beer:
Poured from the bottle, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is a beer that stimulates your senses right from the start. The beer pours out like oil, thick and heavy, filling your glass with its richness. The aroma of this beer is roasty and sweet, with some alcoholic traits as well. The body of the beer is completely, 100% black. Even the direct rays of the sun cannot penetrate its dark body. The foam level is high at first, and it subsides slowly, maintaining a layer of creamy, tan foam throughout the drinking experience.
With qualities like those mentioned above, this beer just begs you to consume. And consume I did, eagerly at first, until I settled in and enjoyed all the great taste. This beer is like drinking espresso, with flavors of coffee, bittersweet chocolate, and alcohol. The mouth feel is thick, almost chewy, and it leaves an aftertaste that’s like a combination of burnt bread, roasted malt, and alcohol. The overall taste is a balance of sweet and bitter, and you can directly taste each sensation as you drink. The generous portions of malt stimulate the sweet senses of your palate, while the dryness of alcohol makes the beer finish with bitter punch.
This product is brewed using Two- row English malt, chocolate malt, wheat malt, black patent malt, and roasted barley. The mixture is infused with East Kent Goldings hops, Cascade hops, and Willamette hops. The original gravity of this concoction is quite high- 1.087. Alcohol level is also high, with 8.5 percent by volume (I could feel the effects after drinking only 2 bottles!). Bitterness is substantial, with 70 IBU. And with all of this body and alcohol comes lots of calories. A 12- oz. serving packs a whopping 298 calories, which is double the level of most mainstream beer.
Food Compatibility:
A beer like this one doesn’t really need any food, since it’s basically a meal all by itself. But if I had to drink it with food, I would probably choose a rich, chocolatey desert, like chocolate cream pie, chocolate cake, or brownies with nuts. It would also go with beef stew, steak, and other red meats. But I think it’s best to consume all by itself.
Final Thoughts:
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is one MONSTER of a beer! This product, which is really an imperial stout, is so full- bodied, so rich, so complex, so full of ingredients and calories, you almost need two hands just to pick up your glass.
Here in my home state of Ohio, we have just recently been able to buy beer like this one. The reason is because our beloved state has all sorts of crazy, wacky, conservative laws that make no sense at all. One of these laws was a limit on the strength of beer. Until the Fall of 2002, beer sold in Ohio could not exceed 7.5 percent alcohol by volume. It made no sense to have such an absurd, controlling law. After all, it was perfectly legal to purchase spirits in Ohio with strengths over 75 percent alcohol, which is ten times stronger than the limit for beer. The state lawmakers finally realized the stupidity and hypocrisy of their ways and they overturned this idiotic law.
I had always wanted to try this beer, and I snatched up a six pack as soon as the opportunity presented itself. As a lover of stout, just the name alone set my beer fantasies into motion. Black Chocolate Stout just sounds so heavenly, so irresistible, so certain to please that I couldn’t wait to grab a six pack, sit back, and let the lovefest begin.
With such extreme flavor, it should be noted that this is NOT a beer for amateurs or casual beer drinkers who think Budweiser is a full- bodied product. Remember those old advertisements from General Motors, the ones with the punchline “It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile”? Well, the punchline for this product could be “It’s not your father’s Miller Lite”.This beer is over the top, extremely rich and tasty. It will frighten rookies who are not accustomed to so much flavor in a glass of beer and it will set most individuals’ taste buds into a state of shock. No, this is a product intended for beer snobs, particularly those who like it dark and heavy, like myself.
With Brooklyn Dark Chocolate Stout, I have discovered a new friend in the world of fine brew. This product is not one that I will purchase often, or one that I will buy en masse and hand out at parties. It’s too good to waste on things like that. This is a beer for special occasions. Its rich, chewy, meaty body and luscious flavors of chocolate malt and coffee make it a delight for all of your senses. It’s a beer to savor!
Recommended:
Yes
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