#958 - A Sweet Treat

Now and then, a brewer just goes wild and manages to capture a near-perfect mix of seemingly obvious non-beer ingredients.  Peanut butter and jelly, for example, while supposedly awesome on a sandwich, would likely suck in a beer, right?  Pork chops and applesauce would be worse. Pork Chop and Applesauce Porter!  I have to go vomit. I'll be right back.

But what about cherries and chocolate.

Hmmmm.

O'Fallon Brewery in Missouri has managed to do it.

Forget it with dinner.  Forget it before dinner. The Cherry Chocolate Beer (#958) should only be had after dinner.  With dessert? That would be even better. For me, it was a simple bowl of vanilla ice cream with added fruits.  Damn good.  

The beer itself was a bit odd to the eye.  I did not read the labels very closely. I was envisioning something dark like a porter or stout but this is a dark wheat. I had never heard of such a thing. Who cares, though, right?  On the nose, chocolate and cherries cut right through. Forget hops or malt tones. There were none to be had.  On the tongue? More chocolate. In this case, it seemed to overpower the cherry. They were there, but not in the same balance as the  aroma. I think the carbonation was bit high - a bit of lip stinging was there at first. As the glass sat for a few minutes longer, this tapered off.  The finish was all about chocolate (still!) and a slight dose of hops.  All in all, it was a pretty weird beer.  I have to give it a 4 out of 5.  I have had other beers where they try to create these combos and they fail. Completely.  Not this one. Give it a go. Basically, you are drinking chocolate covered cherries.

I found out later that part of the chocolate tones result from the addition of chocolate. Not chocolate malt. Actual chunks of chocolate. I had been told many moons ago by a wise man not to eat chocolate.  Okay, it was a doctor running a blood assay suggesting I shouldn't eat it if it bothers me.  That is fancy talk for saying my blood chemistry says I'm allergic to chocolate.   I don't eat Snickers or Hershey''s or chocolate cakes anymore.  But, for whatever reason, this fine brew did not seem to bother me.  Ahhhh, allergies. 

It should also be noted that my 1,000th beer will be coming up!  1,000!!! Holy crap!  As you might expect, I am working out something of a plan for a such a milestone beer.  It won't be out of this world.  In fact, it will be low key but fun, I'm sure. 

Here is what we know -

- It will be at the Fort Street Brewery

- Doug will let me tap the cask

- It will be a Thursday night (he has a new cask every Thursday)

- Tapping will be around 8:00 or so

- My buddy Neal will be flying in from Texas.  After we close the brewery, he is prepared to pay for a three-day weekend riot in Las Vegas to all in attendance. He is so generous! Be sure not to embarrass him by insulting the flight attendants on our private jet!

I'll post more when I have a better idea of when this will happen.  It is a bit hard to predict the night.  We'll know more before too long......