Double Dot Matrix
Left Handed Giant Brewing Co.

It's exactly what it advertises. Black cherry and chocolate stout. Get ready for a delicious, sweet, syrupy dessert stout. I'm looking forward to trying anything else by this brewery I can get my mouth on!

Pours a pitch-black coloration with a medium, fluffy head. Smells of slightly roasted, caramel malt, lactose, milk chocolate and slighty tart black cherries, with a hint of vanilla. Taste is dominated by roasted, caramel malt, milk chocolate and lactose, with lighter notes of tart black cherries and vanilla, as well as hints of coffee and licorice. Finishes with a medium bitterness and some some chocolate covered cherries lingering in the aftertaste. Smooth mouthfeel with a medium body and carbonation.

This immediately brings to mind Mon Cherie chocolate with its rich milk chocolate and black cherry notes and would probably be even better without the lactose and vanilla, with the lactose being especially overbearing here, while I would also have wished for a more black, bitter chocolate note rather than the milk chocolate employed here, but at least the sweeter notes are kept in check more or less nicely by some roasted malts and bitter accents, while this is still way too sweet and lactose-driven for my personal taste though.

Served on draught via the keystar keg system Where the co2 gas is merely a propellent at the sixth independent Salford beer festival
Black cherry and chocolate stout and that’s the rather nice flavour