Short, Dark & Handsome - Mexican Hot Chocolate
Other Half Brewing - Center Street

On tap at Other Half Finger Lakes in Bloomfield, NY.

This one pours a fairly dark black color, with a small head, and a bit of lacing.

This smells mildly spicy, both in terms of spices and cinnamon, with some chocolate but not much else.

This seems a bit muddled to me, I don't even necessarily want a bolder cinnamon or pepper character, it just feels gray and muted. It's a bit thin, and none of the flavors really pop for me.

This is thin, and not creamy enough, with a decent enough drinkability to it.

I don't really need to have this one again.

 

 

Yes, this is a beer from Other Half and since I'm hooked on their stuff and go there nearly every week, I had to get my hands on this. Their other Short, Dark, & Handsome iterations were great and this one was too as it reminded me of the Xocoveza because of it's appearance, taste, feel, burn, and heft. I loved that beer and I loved this too, although they weren't exactly quite like each other!

Of course, this poured dark and slick like a Coffee Stout as it was thin and didn't have a lot of caramel head topping it off. Loads of coffee creamer, lactose, cinnamon, and cacao nibs in the nose as the taste was a bit heavier. Chocolate powder, cinnamon, gritty brownie, and marshmallow sweetness came through in the taste as this was sweet, rich, and sticky all at the same time. Had there been some graham cracker, this would have been a liquid s'more but the burn was reminiscent of chili powder as the cinnamon was nearly equivalent to peppers when it came to the spice and burn factor.

Plenty strong, the booze in this wasn't incredibly hefty but it felt stronger than it was in actuality because of everything else going on here that it complemented. Enough coffee slickness and chocolate powder kept this from being overbearing as this was a fun beer that would be a perfect nightcap to any dinner. Canned on 3/18/19 with "SHORT DARK & SPICY" written below that, this was a breakfast beer as much as it was an American Imperial Stout. So much to like here, as this held up well over the last year!

 

 

From a 16 oz. can into a Willi Becher style glass, this beer pours out like a coffee and forms pitch black in the glass. Over a finger worth of caramel colored bubbles rest on top.

The nose brings silky chocolate on a bed of chili peppers. Brownie mix, slight char, vanilla cream, marshmallow creme, touch of cinnamon. Very nice.

The taste carries in that strong chocolate presence again; slightly bitter baker chocolate, fudge brownie corner piece. It then translations into the vanilla marshmallow creme thick sweetness and the lingering background spices of peppers and cinnamon.

Mouthfeel is thick with sweetness, medium bodied and provides a tingling pepper aspect with no burn. I love the feeling of this beer for only 7.2%. I wouldn’t of guessed by the body.

Overall, this is a very well done pepper stout. I like it. Chocolate brownie edges and vanilla marshmallow creme with a lingering pepper tingle throughout. Nicely done.

 

 

Mellowed when first cold it's crushable. More cinnamon leading the heat as warms, more sippable then. Great stout for its substyle. Can release from March, ageing did not hurt it.