Easter Chocolate Beers

Happy Easter Everyone,

Yesterday hung out with a few friends having a feast, and seeing it was for Easter thought it appropriate to bring along some chocolate beers to have with the hedgehog slice I made for the event. I had tried them all before apart from the Meantime Chocolate, so decided to start with that one first. it has a subtle, if not delicate chocolate aroma and flavour to it which made it perfect to start the choc beer drinking with as it lulled me into the taste of chocolate. After that the Rogue's came out to really boost the flavours as we got into the meal, followed by the Holgate. having been long enough now and having had the Rogue's from the bottle for a while now, can really appreciate it instead of just wanting the taste sensation I had the first time I had in back in the US. As dessert was served and the taste buds had dulled slightly it was time for the Southern Tier, and weren't we happy to leave this 11% choc beer til last, washed down with the hedgehog slice (which was quite rich in chocolate in itself). Again, the alcohol level really made this taste more like a liquor than a beer, so was probably the one i enjoyed the least. The rogue's is a real fave now, but was really excited by how much i enjoyed the meantime for the more subtle flavours in it. Of course, all these beers make our first choc beer attempt look pretty bad, but at least we are learning more how not to do a choc beer, so hopefully our next attempt will be better. but before we do that we are looking to redo a raspberry ale to see if we can improve on a previous attempt that went pretty well for a first go. watch this space.

The other beer news of the day was Stass and I trying our new malt beer. There was great body to the beer as it came out of the barrel for the second fermentation, but the carbonation process did diminish this mouthfeel in the final product. However, one pleasing aspect was the caramel flavours we were able to get from it, and in the end it is an easy drinking autumn ale, which is what we were looking for. hmm, could this lead to a caramel fudge-like beer in the future?

After the 11% Southern Teir, we thought it appropriate to have a Grand Ridge Supershine, seeing we wouldn't actually be increasing the alcohol level, something of an event in itself. I can safely say it was not as intense as previous times I had tasted it, but i would have hoped so after the beer journey.

Enjoy the rest of your Easter,

Beefy