Back in the winter of 2008, the Harpoon Brewery of Boston, Massachusetts launched a new beer: Harpoon Chocolate Stout. This was a new winter seasonal for the brewery, yet hardly their first. The much beloved Harpoon Winter Warmer has been an annual release since 1988, after all. It was only available in the “Wintry Mix” 12-pack sampler. You got three bottles each of this luscious stout, Harpoon Winter Warmer, Harpoon IPA, and UFO White Ale.

This beer is so good, though, that three bottles just aren’t enough, and so my beer-loving heart was warmed to see it in dedicated six-packs for 2011. As a result, I pounced upon it when I saw it at Total Wine in Alpharetta, Georgia. At $8.99 a six-pack, it’s about average as craft beers go these days. If you see it, you’ll want at least six as this one will certainly go fast.

Harpoon says this about the style:

A chocolate stout is a beer with a noticeable dark chocolate flavor. This flavor is created from the use of darker, more aromatic malt that has been roasted or kilned until it acquires a chocolate color.

To be sure, there are a veritable plethora of chocolate stouts on the market today that have no chocolate as an ingredient. Instead, they derive their chocolaty goodness from roasted malts. Harpoon Chocolate Stout offers the best of both worlds, chocolate from roasted malt and from real chocolate as well. The beer is slightly higher in alcohol than most at 5.9% by volume and packs 40 IBUs to balance off the malt and chocolate sweetness.

Harpoon Chocolate Stout pours to a jet black color with a thick, creamy tan head formation and a bittersweet chocolate nose. The palate has a generous hit of roastiness up front from the roasted barley (as opposed to the chocolate). When the chocolate hits, you’ll know it: rich dark chocolate permeates this beer, indeed it’s just like sipping a bittersweet dark chocolate candy bar. The smoothness of the palate helps add to that impression. The barley bitterness re-emerges in the finish, rounding the beer out nicely and then some. Along with the gentlest hit of hops it balances the experience perfectly.

 Just a wonderful beer, highly drinkable and, like a box of fine chocolates, perfect for the holidays. There are lots of chocolate beers, and not all of them manage to get it right. Harpoon does with this one, and gives beer drinkers one of the most authentically chocolaty chocolate beers on the market.

Update 1/4/2017: Harpoon Chocolate Stout is still as rich, smooth and chocolaty as ever. It's a delightful chocolate bar in a glass, and only slightly more expensive at $9.99 a six-pack these days. A holiday favorite.



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