H.C. Berger Chocolate Stout

Formerly brewed at H.C. Berger Brewing Co.
Style: Stout
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Chocolate lovers I hope you got to try this before they closed. It was a find beer.

If you like chocolate, this was it. A great flavor and aroma let’s you know how they got the name. Unfortunately, the brewery is closed.

Color of dark chocolate, scent of chocolate and bread. Mmm...the chocolate taste is really pronounced. Not too sweet though. Although its awfully thin to be a stout, I enjoyed this beer.

A decent stout, but the flavor is very simple and one sided. Not terribly exciting, but a good stout nonetheless.

Pours a nice deep brown to black, the head is light chocolate brown, the lace is fair. Nose is malt, light roasted grains, slight hints of caramel. Front is lightly malt sweet, the top light (For A Stout?). Finishes with moderate carbonation, somewhat dry and little hop presence. Well, a real beginner’s introduction to ’Dark Beer’, so light, even the ’Weenies’ would find it acceptable. Ranks #977 on my master beer list.

Okay, once again my local restaurant that serves microbrews goes for the cute ones. The color was fairly dark, but no real lighting to hold it up to. The head was very little with no lace, but may be the bar’s fault. The aroma was small, maybe a hint of malt and caramel, but no chocolate. The same with the taste, some malt and caramel, but no real hint of chocolate. The finish was light and fairly weak for this style. It is possible that beer has been on tap too long and hasn’t been popular enough to finish the tap. But wasn’t a lot that impressed me about this beer. So far the Chocolate styles have been lacking or overkill in my samplings.

I’m having a bottle of this after my pizza tonight (right now). This brew pours a very dark brown (black). The average light brown rocky head is mostly lasting with fair lacing. After letting the beer breathe, the nose still smells like flowers and band-aids to me. Where’s the chocolate? The flavor is very disappointing. Sickly sweetness in front, with a finish of wet cardboard. Did I get a bad bottle? The medium body is soft and creamy (watery for a stout to be sure). The finish is heavily alcoholic. I wasn’t terribly impressed with any of the brews in my sixer sampler, and this one rates below all the others. I think I’m going to dump the rest of this out in the sink.

impregnable to 60 watt light-- except for a few weak ruby facets. an almost russet head had expired before i’d even put down the bottle. then dead flat, with little cartoon ’x’s over the eyes and feet in the air. nose is moderate, tho mostly smoke, burnt raisins; i prepared my palette for a rauch-like stout, but was instead aghast by the buffoonish and clumsy sweetness, a misguided attempt to simulate chocolate with mere coca-puff sweetness. i discerned some molasses, cherry and diet pepsi. the label, by the way, unaccountably depicts horses asses: this now becomes illuminating. the bitterness and sweetness in a balanced beer normally harmonize like the mormon tabernacle, this conversely bites like aspartame. nasty. the first beer i’ve poured out in a year.