Cheese! How many times have I started a beer review with that word? You may have gathered from reading any of my stout or porter reviews that I really dislike the “cheesy” flavour that a lot of them possess (I call it “lacto”, but I’m not even sure if that’s the right word. Need to check that. Know your enemy, Robson).
This cheese flavour in stout is, to quote Doug Benson, like a slice of pizza in a hot tub- it’s two of my favourite things keeping me from enjoying two of my favourite things. Some beers manage to mask the flavour, such as with sweetness or a barrage of other ingredients; others, such as this one, do not. So what’s the deal? Why the fuck do I like this beer so much when it is fundamentally opposed to everything I stand for?
Stout stampede saunters surreptitiously.
Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout Aroma and Taste
Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout pours out with a decent frothy head and a kind of sweet, creamy nose. Like many Sankt Gallen brews, the nose is merely a hint of what’s on the horizon. One sip, and you might as well sling a bag of onions over your shoulder and tune up your beret, because you’re in Camembert Country now. Wow. Seriously. The smoked flavour is here in abundance too, obviously (I say “obviously”, but some Sankt Gallen flavoured beers are like a Where’s Wally when it comes to discerning the ingredients listed on the bottle- Apple Cinnamon being one that springs to mind).
The overall effect is of a smoked cheese platter, and the beer has a full, meaty mouth feel to it. It’s also opaque! Yay! Good show, old chap.
Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout One Line Review
I do not hate Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout. You see, it has doubled down on its daring dairy derring-do, and has made a beer that is the best of both worlds: cheesier than the 80s disco night at the student union, but also solid and heavy like a good stout should be. Hit the mark with this one, Sankt Gallen.
Where to Buy Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout
We picked up our bottle of Sankt Gallen Smoked Chocolate Stout direct from Sankt Gallen Brewery here. At the time of writing, GoodBeer had it on sale here, Craftbeers.jp here, and Sakaya Okadaya here. Moreover, we also saw it in Le Collier in Tokyo Station, and also Deguchiya in Nakameguro.
