Introducing Contestants – Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

I picked this beer up in a bar in DC when I was pleasantly surprised to see it on the menu.  YDCS is pretty highly rated on BeerAdvocate, and I actually didn’t realize when I added it to the tournament that this one was also from across the pond: Wells Young’s Brewing Company is in Bedford, UK.  This is a very easy-to-find beer.  Most of the nicer pubs I frequent have it either on tap or in a can, and you can find cans and bottles in plenty of stores.  I’ve seen the cans in grocers at times, and it’s quite low on the PPOz rating, so you’ll be getting plenty of bang for your buck.

Perhaps it was a victim of high expectations for me, but I just wasn’t in love with this beer.  Reading around the web it looks like I’m just about the only one with this opinion.  Nonetheless, I call ‘em like I see ‘em, and I don’t see this one making much noise in the tourney this weekend.  The taste is very nice and you better damn sure believe they hit you upside the head with the chocolate in this one, but for me the feel was just too light.  It’s a very smooth beer, almost too much so for me.  It went down like air; the only beer with comparable weight in this tourney is Guinness.  It’s entirely possible that my mild impression of YDCS is strictly from that comparison.  YDCS is on the low end of ABV, clocking in at a trim 5.2%.  A beer certainly can have an excellent flavor and feel without a high ABV.  In this case, though, I feel the low ABV may be holding it back.  Most of the higher brews I’ve tried have a much fuller taste to them – I’m not entirely sure if that’s the alcohol or just a common technique among brewers that also put a lot of kick in their brews. 

Just as with some of the other beers I’ve given so-so reviews to, I do actually like this beer.  I just don’t see it going anywhere in this tourney, not with a tough matchup with Southern Tier Choklat in round 1.

We’ll see how it does when the chips are down this weekend!

Duff Out.