What beer are you drinking now? #3941

It's Saturday, and Saturdays are not supposed to raise existential questions. Saturdays are for relaxing or hell-raising; take your choice. One thing they're not meant for is deep, meaning-of-life expositions. Hell, even Elton John would rather have a punch-on on the first day of the weekend than copy Rodan. But here I am, ruminating on the nature of beer, and in particular, pastry stouts.

What precipitated this crisis? It's Finback's Coconut Drip, a snacky imperial stout (in their words) that contains coconut, vanilla, peanut butter and Invisible Force Brazil Yuki Minami Coffee (you know the one, right?). It's come all the way from Queens to land in a little city down the bottom of Australia. I should be pumped to be drinking a beer almost no-one in this country has ever heard of, let alone drank. But it's sweet: so very, very sweet, and after the first few sips, becomes a chore to get through. And this launches me headlong into dot-pointed rumination on the choice of serving size:

• Why do pastry stouts always come in 500ml (~17oz) serves as a minimum?

After the first mouthful, the reaction is, "Oh my God, this is delicious!", but after the third sip you're thinking, "Holy crap, I still have 450mls to go... This is going to be hard work!" This particular beer is a delight when you first stick your nose in and take your first mouthful. It's heavenly. It's peanut butter and chocolate in a can. But it's relentless. It wears down your palate and sugar defences to the point the last half of the beer is a chore to get through. This beer is a poster boy for excess. It's tasty, and I make no bones about that, but it's just too much. If anything has ushered in the resurgence of lager, it's beers like this. But if they put it in a smaller serving size, would I be done with it before I wanted to curl up into a sugar-induced coma? Seems like a no-brainer to me...

It's a Saturday night beer because you couldn't take time out of your week at any other point to drink it. But it shouldn't be. It shouldn't launch me into an existential crisis. I trust and hope your beer treats you better!

Cheers!