As winter days grow warmer (seriously, I’ve been sweating), it’s lovely to be whisked back to memories of cooler evenings by some cozy dark beers.
Explosivo is a pastry stout, but more the sweet-treat-with-coffee kind than the load-up-your-plate-and-gorge-yourself-on-dessert-at-the-buffet kind.
I haven't tasted many pecan pies – not many nut pies at all, now I think about it – but I believe they’re mostly an excuse to eat a lot of caramelly filling, with the pecans as garnish as much as key flavour. This holds true with Explosivo. Dark caramel leads the way, swirled with vanilla and cinnamon, while the undercurrent of nuttiness and dusting of sweetness act as a garnish. It’s the kind of pie where you can have a second slice without feeling sick.
Meanwhile, Succession Plan is a heftier number. It’s a continuation of Five Barrel’s annual imperial stout release, which previously bore the names Hero of the People and Servant of the People. The brewery’s just returned to the birthplace of the style for the naming convention, skipping across from Eastern Europe to the UK.
This stout’s latte-coloured head gives off roast and chocolate and cola, but once you get drinking you’re in big ol’ mocha territory. Imagine a creamy mocha has been somehow solidified into a block of chocolate… and then that block has been melted. That’s Succession Plan. It’s thick and velvety and provides everything you need to be taken back into winter mode. Except, you know, cold weather.
Mick Wüst
Published August 31, 2023 2023-08-31 00:00:00
