Name: Young's Luxury Double Chocolate Stout
ABV: 5.2%
Bottled/ Draft: Bottled, not conditioned.
Colour: Pitch black
Head: Fine bubbles, lingering deep brown head
Mouthfeel: Fine bubbles remain in the mouth, giving an almost creamy texture.
Taste: Slight bitterness, but more from the deep roasted malt than hops.
Comment: In both taste and smell, this beer lives up to its name with both chocolate and deep, roasted malty "stoutness" clearly present. As well as the traditional chocolate malt, this beer actually contains real dark chocolate as well as chocolate essence.
The trouble is the chocolate overtones don't really blend in with the beer and feel rather artificially added. I can see how Young's have tried to make their stout stand out from other chocolate malt-heavy offering but it just doesn't work for me.
An essentially nice stout, but spoiled by what feels more like a marketing gimmick than a useful addition.
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5 comments:
Having been forced to neck too many of the anodyne brews at the King's Arms in Oxford, Young's beers just leave me cold. Double Chocolate Stout is undoubtly the most flagitious act they commit and called beer; the stuff is atrocious.
If you like darker brews and wish to try one from a London brewer I can heartily recommend Fuller's ESB and their London Porter - much more drinkable. The Meantime Brewery's London Porter (bottled in 75cl bottles and occasionally seen at large Sainburys) is really the cat's arse as far as quality dark beers go. Yeah, I do live those Meantime brews.
I have to confess, I'm not wild about Young's but this one seems to be more a product of some drone from Marketing spotting the chocolate malt and saying "hey, I've got this great idea..."
I have a slowly growing appreciation for Fuller's (having been put off for years by the terrible way they kept London Pride at my local a decade or two ago!) - as for Meantime, I have a bottle of their Coffee Porter waiting for me to open and review sat in the kitchen as I type!
Also have a soft spot for Hogs Back - their OTT is a great dark beer; it's yet another brewery on my absurdly large list to get up here...
I'm allergic to alcohol, so cannot imbibe, but I can cook with it. Nigella's Guinness Cake made with this anyone?
Lisa, have a look at this blog post by a friend: http://fussfreeflavours.com/2010/10/double-chocolate-stout-brownies/
Ohhh....and I just happen to have bought two new brownie pans. *big grin* Thank you!
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