Velvet Hippo
Danelion Brewing

far and away my favorite beer in here, and one that should put them on the map immediately, absolutely nailed this one, a dark bitter chocolate stout, apparently done with ghirardelli dark chocolate of some persuasion, its beautifully incorporated and the base beer is perfectly designed to handle it and its true essence, lovely stuff. obsidian shine and black in the glass without being too viscous which is nice, high airy mid brown head pushing mocha with nice retention, really one of their best looking and most tidy beers we had here. the beer smells and tastes bitter, the good chocolate which is totally unsweetened to me hits a similar note as the roasted malt in terms of bitter, and they linger on the palate in a dry beer, which is a neat sensation when i was expecting something a little more dessert forward, way cool! the base stout has not too much malt richness or body, is clean and well refined, without a lot of fermentation character either, but with subtle notes of raisin, charcoal, and high end espresso beans. the chocolate edition adds smoothness, is deeply earthy, and is really forward in the flavor, even more so as it warms up a little. the integration is brilliant, and its quality is obvious. faint toasted coconut and tobacco nuance, but this is dark all the way. appreciably dry, well carbonated, smooth and not at all heavy, each sip leaves me wanting another bigger one, and i could have drank this all day long, such a perfect winter beer and a killer showcase of this chocolate, super unpretentious too, everything in here is, but this is one they should be proud of, really impressive and even good enough to be regionally relevant at least, i loved it, love it being lower alcohol too and not packed with lactose and vanilla and all the new school junk, a nice change of pace, well done!

Half pour at Danelion. Pitch black pour, small bubbly head. Bitter, roasty aroma with notes of coffee. Taste is bitter from the start, not sure if there was coffee in this or the malts were oasted very well. Nice feel overall