After being relentlessly hounded by a spamming cake marketer — which conjured up horrific mental imagery of frosting — we are capitulating. We will inform you that today, Friday, is National Chocolate Cake Day. In the spirit of National Chocolate Cake Day – which has yet to be declared an official holiday – we’re playing to your craft beer. Luckily for us craft beer lovers, there are many delicious and unique chocolate beers being crafted by U.S. breweries — just in time for this national day. We present Craft Beer Crosscut 1.27.17: A Flight of Chocolate Beer, our beer flight of the day. …
Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout
5% ABV, 28 IBUs
Samuel Smith’s has always brewed the old-fashioned way and the British operation still pulls water from its original well dug in 1758. Its Chocolate Stout is velvety and delicious, with creamy chocolate milk, chocolate syrup and cocoa powder dancing on the tongue. Caramel and vanilla try to cut in.
Boulder Beer Shake Chocolate Porter
5.9% ABV, 39 IBUs
Boulder Beer Company’s Shake Chocolate Porter (Boulder, Colorado) tastes like a chocolate shake with its rich chocolate aroma and velvety mouthfeel. This beer, which took home a gold medal in the Chocolate Beer category from the 2014 World Beer Cup, is brewed with five different grains, including Chocolate Wheat, and has added cacao nibs.
Puyallup River Mud Mountain Milk Stout
7% ABV
Puyallup River Mud Mountain Milk Stout grabbed a silver medal at the 2015 Washington Beers Awards. It grabbed a bronze at the 2016 Washington Beer Awards. It grabs every drinker when they taste its smooth as chocolate silk self. Fresh vanilla beans, cocoa nibs, oats, and six different specialty malts make this milk stout one of the easiest drinking dark beers on the planet.
Odd Otter Comrade Otter’s Russian Imperial Chocolate Stout
11.7% ABV
Looking for a hefty slice of double chocolate cake smashed up and poured into a glass? Downtown Tacoma brewery Odd Otter offers this sticky, thick heavy bodied craft beer with heavy, dark chocolate and light campfire mid palate with tons of subtle interplay between layers of malty notes. Expect a long, earthy chocolate finish.
Southern Tier Crème Brûlée Milk Stout
10% ABV, 55 IBUs
Brewed with natural chocolate, and four varieties of malts doused in lactose and vanilla, this is the cheesecake of beer. Chords of custard and caramelized sugar entice nose and mouth alike, and the thick, creamy body is enough to slow even the most seasoned sugar-junkie’s drinking pace to a crawl. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
(By the way, while there are other chocolate days, the Jan. 27 tribute to cocoa is our favorite. Why? Because after four weeks of making this year’s weight loss resolution stick, it’s time for a well-earned cheat day.)
