Name: Chocolate Stout

Brewer: Rogue

Style: Chocolate Stout

Cellared On: August 4th, 2007

Original Tasting: September 9th, 2008

You can almost see the thought process here: Hmmmm…..I like chocolate…..and I like beer……why not chocolate beer?

Rogue’s Chocolate Stout is the first Chocolate Stout I’ve tried, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the style. It poured very dark, with a toffee-colored head. You can almost see the cocoa in it! Not getting much aroma, maybe a little bit of roasted malt.

Taste was initially of roasted malts, with a little bit of bitter chocolate thrown in. It’s much thinner beer then I was expecting, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The finish is a nice pairing of warming alcohol with very bitter cocoa.

Interesting beer. I definitely want to taste other chocolate stouts now (like Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout!) to see how this compares.

Six Month Tasting: February 15th, 2008

This brew has faded a bit over the month. There’s still an unmistakable cocoa presence throughout this beer, but it has lost the sharp bitter flavor that was present before. It’s almost more of a milk chocolate taste now. The roasted malts have also faded a bit, although a brief sweet caramel flavor flutters past the tongue. A nice little burst of hops still comes through on the end, but unfortunately it is also joined by a bit of an oxidized papery taste. Chocolate lingers in your mouth long afterwards.

One Year Tasting Notes: September 14th, 2008

For the love of everything that is good in this world, don’t age this brew.

Bitter, astringent cocoa flavors dominate this brew. Malt flavors have subsided and offer nothing to balance out the out-of hand chocolate. To make things worse, a papery oxidative taste is also permeating this brew. Just a terrible beer now.

Cellar Outlook: I really have no idea how this will age.It has a lower ABV% (around 6%) then you would typically like, but I can see where emerging aging flavors would blend well with the chocolate in this brew over time.

Six Month Cellar Outlook: I don’t think there’s much hope for this brew. I’ve realized that brewing with chocolate or cocoa must inevitable add some cocoa fats to the beer. More fats present in the beer would lead to higher occurrences of lipid oxidation, which would definitely mean increased stale flavors. I’m betting that was what was causing the oxidized taste I was getting at the end, and I would also bet that it’s just going to get worse as time goes on.

One Year Cellar Outlook: There’s no hope at all. Don’t age this brew under any circumstances. It’s great fresh, drink it then!

Next Tasting: August 2009