Southern Tier Imperial Chocolate Stout

Chocolate and beer, how could anyone ever go wrong pairing the two? Today’s chocolate beer was not featured in our earlier chocolate and beer post in September. Mostly because I was not aware of it’s existence. But since that is no longer the case, let’s examine Southern Tier’s Imperial Choklat Stout!

Based on the name you would have thought this beer came from a brewery in Atlanta, but alas, this is a Lakewood, New York institution.

This is, without a doubt, the most accurately chocolate beer that I’ve had yet. It’s smooth, not bitter at all and gets even better in taste as it warms slightly. Not too sweet and well bodied, I drank the beverage out of the recommended snifter.

Dogfish Head and Rogue came very very close with their Theobroma and Chocolate Stout, but as a true chocoholic, I couldn’t in good conscious declare either of them a drink for the gods. If you’re a person who likes there chocolate beer to taste more like chocolate and less like beer, than this is your brew.

What makes it different? Well that would require a zymurgy specialist to dissect the difference in hops, malt and barley used to create this beer, but I can tell you that listing “bittersweet belgian chocolate” as an ingredient surely had something to do with it.

Southern Tier has released their Black Water series of brews of Imperial Stouts in other dessert worthy flavors like Creme Brulee Imperial Milk Stout, Jah*va Imperial Coffee Stout and Oat Imperial Oatmeal Stout. Crazy naming conventions aside to stand out in a crowded market of microbrews and independent brew pubs, they need not worry with this “Choklat” Stout.  I’ll be headed back to my source to obtain more, that’s for sure.