Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.

Tag: sweet stout

Magical Mystery Pour #3: Chocolate Cake

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 23rd February 2016
1 Comment on Magical Mystery Pour #3: Chocolate Cake

The third of four beers recommended to us by Dina is Siren’s Caribbean Chocolate Cake stout, a collaboration with Florida’s Cigar City.

In her sleeve notes Dina says:

Oh, hi dark chocolate stout, I enjoy the way you feel. It’s like sleeping on black satin sheets in a forest on a moonlit night. In the Caribbean, I suppose, but I get more western South Dakota. I am recommending this one to you guys for a bit of luxury. Go on, you’re worth it.

Its ABV is 7.5% and we bought our 330ml bottle from Beer Gonzo for £4.25.

It looked lovely when we poured it — clingy black with a stable berg of red-brown crema. Espresso with chocolate ice cream on top. (The pic below makes it look beige; it wasn’t.)

The aroma was subdued amounting to no more than a whiff of roasting nuts.

Tags magical mystery pour, magicalmysterypour, milk stout, Siren, stout, sweet stout

Beer history design

Vintage beer mat designs

Rooting through a secondhand bookshop in Penzance this week, we found a box full of old beer mats and couldn’t resist buying a little stack. Many were from now extinct breweries, advertising beers which don’t exist anymore. Their designs are simple but very evocative of another age.

Here are a handful of scans, mostly of British beer mats, but with one excellent German design thrown in as a bonus: you can’t go wrong with any picture of a planet doffing his boater, can you?

Tags beer mats, DAB, Devenish, sweet stout

Our latest book is Balmy Nectar, a collection of the best of our writing from here on the blog and across various magazines since 2012. It's available via Amazon worldwide. Our book 20th Century Pub was released in 2017 and is an award-winning rattle through the development of the English pub from beerhouses to micropubs. A new edition of Brew Britannia: the strange rebirth of British beer came out in July 2017, with corrections and a new format. We reckon both books are pretty bloody good, but don't take our word for it. Buy Brew Britannia at Amazon UK | Amazon US | Stanfords | or at your local bookshop. Order 20th Century Pub at Amazon UK | Blackwells.