Siren: Cigar City: Caribbean Chocolate Cake (England: Foreign Stout: 7.4% ABV)
Visual: Black. Thin dark brown creamy head.
Nose: Thick and cloying. Nutty and sour dough. Light perfumed and spice. Brown bread. Chocolate hints. Tabasco sauce and ketchup.
Body: Condensed cream. Burnt macaroon bases. Milky chocolate. Mild brown sauce. Fruity chilli sauce. Cherries. Cinnamon apples.
Finish: Coconut. Dried mango. Brown sauce and burger meat. Chocolate cake.
Conclusion: I was kind of expecting this to concentrate on the chocolate cake, it is half the name and the part I would most commonly associate with stouts. Well the chocolate cake is there, delivered pretty big as well, but it is far from the whole story.
The story is spicy touched but not harsh or one note. The story is a fruity chilli sauce through to a brown sauce touch, all over a thick textured beer that leaves your mouth feeling like you have chewed a burger as much as had a drink for the imagery it brings.
The chocolate sweetness is thick and condensed cream like that allows all those condiment sauces and spice elements to work as a turbulent undertow that drags you into its depths then blasts you back into the thick sweetness – a wonderful contrast that works magic in your mouth.
To get a hint of what is come with this beer, to get a beer overture, all you need to do is take your time and let the aroma in. It is all hinted at there. the juicy warm sauce just floats out over the glass bubbled over the chocolate.
Frankly an excellent beer – so different, so fruit, warm, thick and so chocolaty – yet still so smooth. The alcohol is so eased out that this could be just a jalapeno chilli dipped chocolate milkshake for all you would know.
Drunk at the end of 2015 and as I drink this it is one of the great beers of 2015, and that is saying something.
Background: This was highly recommended to me at Independent Spirit, I put off grabbing it for a while as my cupboard was stout heavy at the time. As you can tell, I finally picked it up. This was the first use of the new stout glass given to me by craft beer sis at Christmas. many thanks. Only the wheat ale glass to go! This beer was made with coca nibs, cyprus wood and lactose. Drunk while listening to Akala and Napalm Death again.
