Only a three beer left after today.  It’s been quite a run.  I can’t believe it’s already almost over.  I’m heading out of town shortly too, but I’m bringing the beers with me so that I can still get my posts up.  It’ll be a sweet trip and I’m hoping to manage to get to some of the breweries in Hawaii so I can try some of the beer.  I’ve already scoped out a sweet pub near where I’m staying that has a ton of beer on tap from all over the USA. Should be fun.

Today’s beer comes to us from Clown Shoes Beer and it is a variation on a Chocolate Stout called an Indian-Style Chocolate Stout.  The name of the beer itself is “Bombay Berserker” and it sounds pretty tasty.

Founded by Gregg Berman and a group of friends after losing a beeradvocate naming contest.  They decided that they could make Clown Shoes beer themselves and they didn’t need Beer Advocate to be the ones to use the name.  They started off thinking it’d be one brew, just for fun.  After getting some good feedback on their beers, they decided what the heck, let’s keep going.  While they don’t provide too many details about the formation, brewhouse, or anything at all really on their website, they do at least give us a look at the variety of the beers that they make.  They’ve got a ton of special releases, seasonal bombers, 4-packs, and a whopping list of retired beers.  As the name might suggest, while clown shoes represent humility and humour, the brewery itself represents producing beer without pretension while being free to be a little crazy.  They put a big focus on experimentation and the list of beers on their site point to a lot of that.

This is another stout, although a different variation on the style. There have been a lot of stouts in this advent calendar.  This likely has to do with their ability to age. Now, I already did a write up on stouts on Day 2 and so if you are interested in reading a bit more about the Stout style, feel free to take a look at that one.  Like I indicated on the first chocolate stout we tried, they are beers which have noticeable dark chocolate notes both in flavor as well as in colour.  This is done through the use of darker, more aromatic malts.  Specially, chocolate malts, malts which have been roasted or kilned until they develop a chocolate colour.  This beer is a variation on this variation.  While still using the same malts in the beer they have added a number of spices including: chai tea, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla. I’m pretty excited about this one, it sounds tasty. So, enough about it, let’s get to it.

Rating:  79/100

Appearance:  Pours solid dark brown.  1” of puffy foam with tan head.
Smell: Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, star anise, some caramel malt as well as some chocolate malt.  Some earthy hop notes are present as well.
Taste:  Bready caramel malt, toffee, chai spice, cardamom is really present, ginger is noticeable but as a bitter lingering finish.
Mouthfeel: medium bodied, smooth, some creamy notes as well.
Overall: Pleasantly spiced with a lot of layers and different notes coming through along the way. It’s got a good body to it that carries these flavours overs the threshold. Good sipping beer for sure.  Only complaint is that the spices overpower any of the underlying stout and I don’t really get to taste the beer, just the spice.
Do I like it: I enjoyed it.  I think it had a lot of interesting characteristics going for it.  I’d be interested in trying it again but I’m not going to seek it out.