Mexican Chocolate Stout

Copper Kettle Brewing Co.

Denver

Inspired by a 500-year-old Aztec recipe for hot chocolate, Mexican Chocolate Stout is brewed with dark malts, bittersweet chocolate, a blend of three Mexican chili peppers and cinnamon. It won a gold medal at the 2011 GABF in the herb and spice category.

ABV: 7.0

ABW: 5.6

COLOR: 47

BITTERNESS: 50

ORIGINAL GRAVITY: 1069

AVAILABLE: CO

This is a hot number—a jet-black stout based on ancient Aztec and Mayan recipes. Cacao nibs, cinnamon and dried chili peppers augment the malts and hops to create a beer with a nose-tingling spicy aroma balanced by dry chocolate and roasted grain. Chili blasts the tongue and tonsils but chocolate and cinnamon grow in the long finish that ends dry, roasty and fiery.
- Roger Protz

The beer pours thick and black, raising up a ring of mocha foam. The aroma is intoxicating—cinnamon, chilies, chocolate and dark bread. Whoa! This beer is taking no prisoners as it launches an attack of spicy heat at the back of the palate and glowing all the way down. The malt in the center struggles, vainly, to be heard, but it does the job of holding the whole thing together; bitterness and sweetness are well-balanced. Hot, hot, hot. This is a one-trick beer, but it’s a pretty cool trick. Turkey or roast chicken, yes, but better yet with flourless dark chocolate cake.
- Garrett Oliver

Roger Protz
Author of 300 Beers to Try Before You Die and 300 More Beers to Try Before You Die. Respected beer authority and editor of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and www.protzonbeer.co.uk.

Garrett Oliver
Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, the Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer, the author of The Brewmaster’s Table, and the veteran host of more than 900 beer dinners in 15 countries.