Great American Beer Festival 2010
ABV: 9.75%
Origin: Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
Website: www.foothillsbrewing.com
If this beer is anything to go by, craft brewing in the US has gone south with a vengeance. A small production brewpub with a penchant for cask ale and a nifty line in bold poster-style graphics, Foothills opened in 2005 as an offshoot of Blue Ridge, the first brewpub in the neighbouring state of South Carolina.
Part-owner, head brewer and former archaeologist Jamie Bartholomaus created Sexual Chocolate as a Valentine’s Day special in 2007, adding whole organic cocoa pods to the secondary conditioning tank, about 3/4 pound (340g) per barrel (117l, or about 3g/l). It also contains a hefty 85IBU of hops and comes with a funky label that suggests the accompaniment of a wah-wah guitar. I tasted it on draught at Pints for Prostates, the rare beer tasting event held at the Wynkoop brewpub, Denver, during the Great American Beer Festival.
This black beer has a very dark mid-brown head that’s bubbly and rich, with an assertive, slightly stinky and worty brown malt aroma hinting of oily chocolate. The oily and rich but dry palate has toast, fruit cake and minerals, turning burnt and chewy in the mouth with resiny hop notes. A slick of intense roast and chocolate coats the mouth in a vivid finish with developing peppery hops and emerging tannic notes. Sexy, perhaps, but with claws.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/foothills-sexual-chocolate-imperial-stout/69930/
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