Cask conditioned gravity dispense at Merton Winter Beer Festival 16-02-07. Imagine the scene in Scarface where Al Pacino is sat behind a desk, in front of him sits a huge mound of cocaine, his head flops forward and he’s immersed in the stuff, now imagine that mound of cocaine is a huge mound of cocoa powder, seriously that’s what this stuff is like you get a real great hit of Cocoa powder and it has a wonderful creaminess to it, it really is a stunner. I found this beer to be a real grower, there were other beers that were more instantly likeable but this I kept coming back to and like a top class racehorse it just crept up on the opposition to sneak what looked like an unlikely victory to be my beer of the festival. It was nigh on black in appearance with a rich creamy head, and the aroma was both roasty and bitter chcolate, but the taste was super and that silky rich milk chocolate came flooding through, in fact Co co Hops is a great name because just for a second you got that Kellogs Coco Pops milk going chocolatey taste. There was more to it than the chocolate, but for me that was all I really kept coming back for, you see it did exactly what it suggested with the name, there was nothing particularly complicated about it, you want chocolate you’ve got chocolate. Choctastic!

Cask gravity at Kent BF 2006. Black beer with fading beige head. Powdery cocoa, smooth in mouth, very good choc on end. Just a bit too powdery.