December 7th: Young's Double Chocolate Stout

December 7th: Young's Double Chocolate Stout, 330ml, 5.2%, 1.4 standard drinks.

Price: $5.49

Why I picked it: You know how double chocolate chip cookies are better than the single kind? I didn't have a single chocolate beer, but I realised a couple of days after first filling the tree that I had two flavours of mudshake in there, so this replaced the chocolate flavored one.

Colour: Pantone 7533 C

More stuff: Finally, we get to one that I don't like. It started well; I poured it into a little glass and marveled at the foamy head, something I'd been missing in beers from a bottle compared to beers on tap.

Sadly, this was the end of the good stuff. I really don't like the taste. Compared to the nice charred meat and vegemite taste of the other very dark beer I drank on my practice night, this tastes like something that shouldn't have been burnt.

I don't think it tastes like chocolate. But, just to be sure, I had a lick from the tin of cocoa powder in the cupboard. It didn't taste like that, it doesn't taste like dairy milk, and all the dark chocolate in the apartment also contains mint. I tried it with Cadbury Coco (a 70% cocoa with mint chips) and discovered that I also really don't like that chocolate either*. Also, it didn't taste like the beer. I considered actually burning some chocolate, to see if that was what it tasted like, but that seemed like a waste. So I ended up drinking the chocolate mudshake too.

It was fucking delicious. If you like beer, drink beer. If you like chocolate, have a mudshake. Also, I hear the Baileys chocolate is delicious. The bottle was too big for my tree, which is a shame.

*what little mint flavour it has appears to be spearmint, which is a rubbish choice: spearmint should only be utilised when the surrounding context is cool, such as for a milkshake. With the richness of dark chocolate, the coolness of peppermint is needed to cut through it, and in much greater quantities than the meagre 8% mint chip content of this variety.