Viking Brewing Hot Chocolate

Brewed by Viking Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Dallas, Wisconsin USA

dark brown to black...almost opaque. beige head. the aroma is strong on coffee, cocoa with hints of pepper in the background. aroma and flavor are dry. flavor is coffee with chocolate notes and more pepper in the flavor..like drinking those DAVID sunflower seeds. interesting, though i’d never buy it again.

Bottle: Big mocha aroma with light roasted coffee. Pours a dark brown with no transparency and an insignificant tan head. Lots of chocolate malt up front. Finishes with a roasted coffee and a hint of cayenne pepper. As the beer warms the cayenne pepper presence increases and gives a little burning sensation as you swallow. There is also a hint of fruitiness in the background as it warms. Not the greatest stout, but definitely underrated.

Thanks to robertsreality for this beer.

This one was a gusher and almost made a mess out of my kitchen. Luckily I caught it in time and let it do its business in the sink. Now, on to the beer. Poured onyx with a fizzy brown head which dissipated completely. Smells of roasted chocolate and coffee with a touch of hops. The taste is thin roasted coffee with a touch of skunkiness. Where’s the heat? Compared to Cave Creek Chili Beer, this is quite mild. Rather thin-bodied. I think they should have avoided the "hot chocolate" gimmick and concentrated on making this a better stout.

first beer of the day at my little tasting party, shared by Hey_Kevin. started with a mocha aroma, pour was a dark brown with no head. flavor was hot chocolate up front which turned to slight acidic notes in the middle, followed by a pepper burn in the back of the throat on the tail end. rather thin bodied, needed a bit more chocolate and less burn.

Thanks for sharing, hey_kevin. Poured a dark brown that is almost black. The aroma is chocolate, raspberries and some cardboard. The taste has some cardboard and some light chocolate. There is definitely a light burning sensation in the back of the throat. I have had some high quality spicy hot chocolate and truffles. Those had a lot more chocolate and were more flavorful. This ends up being a little bland.

This is possibly the ugliest beer I have ever encountered. Head is almost nonexistent and things would be much better if it had chosen the "nonexistent" route. Thinly disgusting, milky film with undefined chunks of blessedly anonymous material. Basically, it looks like somebody made a shandy with chocolate milk and a cheap porter. Smells like burnt coffee mixed with powdered charcoal. Tastes like incredibly sweet generic chocolate syrup, then nothing for about ten seconds at which point the mouth becomes very dry (the phrase "it’s like I’m chewing sand"), then a large quantity of very disgusting pepper launches an assault on the palate. The burn is long and unpleasant. Manages to be thin and watery, yet gritty and sandy.

Far and away the worst looking beer I have ever seen. It looks like someone with no arms made chocolate milk with that god damn rabbit powder and water. The aroma is cocoa and bad homebrew. The flavor is sweet with no carbonation and then 10 seconds after swallowing a huge wallop of burnt cayenne come bursting out. (Justin Wilson is rolling in his grave.) Gritty watery palate.

Aroma of toasted grain and cocoa, pours very dark with a thin off-white head. Dark roasted flavor soon gives way to sweet milk and cocoa; pepper then asserts sharply. This daring experiment is definitely a polarizing love-it-or-hate-it beer; even though I like it I have to confess it was difficult to finish a bottle.