REVIEW 103: YOUNG'S DOUBLE CHOCOLATE STOUT

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  England

BREWERY:  Wells & Young's Ltd.

STYLE:  Chocolate Stout

ABV:  5.2%

PURCHASE:  Four-pack of 11.2-oz. bottles, $11.99

SERVING:  11.2-oz. bottle, poured into Guinness branded imperial pint glass. A normal pour produced a normal head of roughly an inch and a half. A slower pour resulted in about the same. Retention was nothing of note. A fast pour, however, yielded a head that took up about half the glass and stuck around for a bit.

APPEARANCE:  Cola-brown body with a rocky cream-beige head. Very faint bubbling if you look close enough. Lacing is of the thin, somewhat splotchy variety, and only after the session progresses into the second serving.

BOUQUET:  As advertised: Dark chocolate and chocolate malt--and by extension, barley--are the biggies here. Chocolate, of course, is not of the confectionery sort; we're talking roasty, bitter chocolate here. The overall aroma is a bit buttery, too.

PALATE:  Achieves a good balance of rich, smooth, and roasty. Almost Guinness-like in its ease of consumption, particularly for a stout. Straightforward dark chocolate flavor complemented by roasted malt and, at least seemingly, a wisp of black coffee at the back. Light-medium body with low carbonation. Inviting, but not as full-flavored as it seems it could be.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Say "chocolate malt," and most people think of a milkshake. For a craft beer enthusiast, though, it conjures up images of carefully harvested chocolate-malted barley, soon to be utilized for the purpose of brewing a rich, delectable, chocolate stout. 

Long a staple of this chocolate stout style, Young's remains a favorite for much of the craft beer community. In my view, however, it has been bested by too many competitors, namely Rogue. 

That's more of a check than a knock.

GRADE:  B

What chocolate malt actually looks like . . . before it becomes
 a beer . . . or a milkshake!