Grado Plato Chocarrubica

Brewed by Birrificio Grado Plato
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Chieri (TO), Italy

750 ml. swingtop bottle. (A gift from my favorite girl). Dark brown and translucent pour, with a craggy light brown head which proved unruly in my small tulip glass. Aroma reveals a light funkiness with notes of leather, wine cask and dusty cocoa. Bone dry flavor marked by unsweetened cocoa. Wood and cobwebs gives way after a while to more nutty and chocolatey flavors. Has an interesting choco-funky thing going on, but I admit I would have never spent the $$$ on this myself.

22oz bottle courtesy of Joe. Pours a frothy black with a tan head. Nose is intense chocolate and some odd fruit notes and a little pine. Taste is pure crazy chocolate. Very tasty. Not powdery. One dimensional but extremely drinkable and tasty. Great desert beer. Neat

Bottle Swing-top: Poured a carbonated black with tan head. Aroma was a bit vinegar and chocolate. Taste is a bit funky with slight hints of chocolate.

Bottle at Funky Buddha/Case and Keg tasting. Almost a black pour with a small tan head. Aroma has some chocolate and oxidzed apple in it. Flavor has some chocolate, apple flavor, and some slight bitterness. Not amazing, not totally horrible.

The aroma is bad. Its got a definite urinal cake quality. There is some chocolate in there too which is the only positive thing I can say about it. The appearance is brown with a nice head that falls pretty fast. The flavor is funky and very much like the aroma. The palate is thin but not watery. Overall its pretty gross.

aroma is not very pretty medicinal and a sports urinal trough. the taste is malts very medicinal and some cocoa. the beer looks well but this beer is not barley worth your time.

On Tap at Max’s in Baltimore. Poured a nice deep brown with a thin tan head. Aroma was hazelnut syrup through and through, but not overly sweet. Some good malt in the back ground. Smelled great. Unfortunately the flavor was more of the same which would be good except it got a little to sweet on the backend. Good beer, but maybe as a dessert, and a pint might be a bit much.

Appearance: Grado Plato’s Chupacabra opens with a hiss and blood-curdling screech of carbonation. It pours out a dark brown, near black body with a thinnish, fizzy, beige-colored head on top. Smell: Sour, rubbery scent of darkened malts, stale nuts, and grapes flecked with horse-made fertilizer. This does not bode well. I’ve gone looking for the elusive Chupacabra and found only despair. Taste: Curious mix of chocolate, walnut shells, and tree bark with a middle sweetness. I had to grab onto the bar with both hands to ride out the incredible jolt of tart sourness that followed. Taste of rubber. Thin fruitiness and some dark malts, but it’s hard not to focus on all the foul flavors. Gack! Grado Plato’s Chupacabra has ruthlessly shredded my patience like so much unsuspecting cattle. Mouthfeel: Medium-plus body. Medium-high carbonation. Drinkability: A pretty poor product, I must say. Not recommended whatsoever. Ah well, that’s what I get for messing with Chupacabra. I should’ve known better. You can’t drain the blood of sheep unless you suck really hard.