Choc Hops & Chicos!

Having found out that Mildura Brewery was taking over the taps at Mrs Parma's and that the Choc Hops was to be available in the line up, it was a must do. So after doing my bit for National Blood Donor Week, I took a stroll across the city to recover from the blood letting before hitting Mrs Parma's for a pot of the Choc Hops.  Having previously described this beer as tasting like chicos, I thought it appropriate to test my own thinking on this.

Ok, it had been a while since I had tasted chicos, so the choc and vanilla/milk was a bit sweeter than I remember...or maybe I am just getting old. Unfortunately, the Choc Hops itself seems to have changed, as a higher carbonation was heightening the bitterness in the cocoa and not letting the vanilla in the beer to come through. Letting it warm up considerably to blow off the carbonation and bring out the sweetness, when it was left of the tongue for quite a while some of the sweetness did come back. Also, with that warmth, the aroma did come very close to the chicos, but that was a close as I could get. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that they did not come out closer (not just because I have proved myself wrong). I still think that previously this beer did taste more like chicos as cannot remember that bitterness being in the beer before, or that level of carbonation. With chocolate beers being such a favourite style of mine, I thought I would have picked up any cocoa bitterness before.

Anyway, I got it wrong from this experiment, so should just accept that and enjoy the rest of the chicos and reminisce on their place in my childhood. While being nostalgic, I guess it appropriate that some old Nintendo 64 games came into my hands today, so have spent the afternoon reliving Mario Kart, Zelda and Lylat Wars to keep with the theme.

Here is to old skool at least.

Beef