Chocolate Gateau
Commonwealth Brewing Company in Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States 🇺🇸
Stout - Pastry / Flavoured - Imperial Regular|
Score
7.35
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Deep dark brown coloured body with a nice and relatively dense, two to three centimetre tall light brown and deep tan head that does fade pretty quickly. Aroma of deep and quite strong roasted malt notes with some oatmeal and grain here, along with a lot of sugars, caramelised and some lighter caster sugar notes, but the fruit does really show at the end of the nose with some tarter raspberries combining with deeper black and especially blueberry notes - strong in the nose of course. Full-bodied; Very rich malt notes dominate the flavour at first with a lot of an oatmeal and toasted grain presence that brings out a good deal of bitterness, with some lighter vanilla here, but also much more of the deep treacle, molasses, brown sugar and still somehow some of the tart fruit notes of cherries, raspberries and blueberry notes all here, past the malt notes! Aftertaste is complex with a lot of the sugars and sweetness combining nicely with the rich malts, the pungent bitterness (from those malts) and the tartness from the fruits that combine to make a nice beer throughout. Overall, while this was still strong, I'm sure it's been only getting better in the can, and given this was still fairly strong (granted, it IS 10,2 per cent ABV, some MORE time to age this would have probably been better, perhaps another three or so years? I sampled this sixteen ounce (to big of a format here!) pint-sized can, purchased from Crystal City Wine Shop in Arlington, Virginia on 18-October-2019 for US$5,39 sampled just over three years later at my house here, a few blocks from the shop, in Washington on 03-November-2022.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Almost black pour. Smell of chocolate liqueur. Dark chocolate taste with a bittersweet chocolate palate.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8.5
Pounder: Blackberry, raisin, charred oak nose. Dark brown, thin tan head. Molasses, raisin, subtle plum. Baker's chocolate overtones. Medium body, easy carbonation.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8.5
Roast, chocolate and raspberry. Good balance and fruit isn't overbearing, so that the stout remains a stout. Black pour with good mocha head. Bittersweet end with creamy consistency. Tap at Churchkey.