Choc around the Lough

Not a wet week after I reviewed that series of extremely tasty stouts from Lough Gill, they're at it again. Two more stouts today, a little less full-on, though both including chocolate as a key ingredient.

"Irish Chocolate Stout" is the straightforward description on Ben Bulben, a 6% ABV job whose blurb promises a "sumptuous" and "intense" experience. It doesn't seem so to begin with, looking a bit thin as it pours, with a poor score on head retention. The aroma does say chocolate, though, or at least bang-average drinking cocoa. I was not braced to be impressed. And that's fair enough -- it's not a big and flouncy chocolate stout, but a solid and reliable one, reminding me a little of the Porterhouse's Chocolate Truffle and a lot of Young's Double Chocolate. It is solidly drinkable and pleasingly clean for a chocolate stout, with quite a high carbonation to scrub the palate before the candy grease descends on it. The finish is clean too, leaving a dusting of cocoa powder and a mild hop bite, but no sticky sugar. I expected something much more sickly and was very pleased by what I got instead. For €3.50 it's a bargain. Buy a few.

The next one was rather spendier at €6, though it is 10% ABV and brewed with a fancy collaborative partner in Alewife of New York. With Sometimes You're A Nut (indeed, sometimes I am) the visuals are altogether better: a sleeker black colour with a creamy Irish-coffee head lasting all the way down. The name references both coconut and almond in the flavour, though of course only the former shows up in the aroma. I was immediately playing Hunt The Almond. The flavour has warmth and smoothness and plenty of coconut for a dark-chocolate Bounty effect, but nothing I could pin as almond. Oh well. It's still very good though, retaining the balance and approachable quality of the previous one, but adding a rich sippable quality commensurate with the strength. Like the previous set of archaeology-themed beers (one of which is the Irish brewers' beer of the year), this is pure class and effortlessly integrates novelty ingredients that often feel jarring when other breweries do it. One can argue whether "best pastry stout brewer" is a true position of honour, but Lough Gill definitely holds it for Ireland.

Despite the commonalities these are two very different beers. I think that means that Lough Gill can keep churning out chocolate flavoured stouts and I can keep drinking them and still say I'm tasting a broad spectrum of beers. Great! As you were.