Young's Double Chocolate Stout from Eagle Brewery Beer Review

I first tried Young's Double Chocolate Stout years ago at a bar in London looking out over the Thames to St Paul's Cathedral and really enjoyed it, but was that partly down to the view? It's time to find out. I bought this bottle as part of a 4 beers for £6 offer from Morrison's and it's really not a difficult beer to find. As the brewery was based virtually on the Thames this beer really didn't have to travel far for my first taste. Young's were an old staple of the British brewing scene and had been in London since 1831 although they are now owned by Carlsberg/Marston's who now brew it at Eagle Brewery in Bedford so that's a bit of a shame.

Double Chocolate Stout comes in a nice 500ml bottle featuring a ram and the iconic London skyline proclaiming London will always be Young's. Exactly what that means when the beer isn't even brewed in London anymore I have no idea. The beer is described as 'for chocolate lovers everywhere. A doubly indulgent stout brewed using rich, dark chocolate. Pure luxury in a glass.' It all sounds pretty good and as someone with a sweet tooth and love for chocolate stouts I am looking forward to getting my teeth back into this. 

The beer clocks in at 5.2% which isn't bad and pours very dark with a decent, and fairly long lasting tan head, it looks for all the world like a good, high quality chocolate stout should. The aroma is rather unsurprisingly chocolate and more chocolate, but it's actually not as strong as I expected given that this is meant to be a Double Chocolate Stout. You'll probably get a faint whiff of roasted malts and maybe some coffee too, but really it is just quite mild milk chocolate. I really was more excited to try this before smelling it.

Young's Double Chocolate Stout has quite a thick body and creamy texture, but it's just not as good as I remember. The taste is chocolate, but like the smell it's mild and watered down. I think the problem is when I had this years ago a chocolate stout was a rare treat but now they're everywhere and the likes of Triple Choc from Saltaire and Sweet Temptation from Vocation Brewery just have a much more opulent chocolate taste. This is still a good beer, it's just not kept up with the sweeter times sadly. I'm going to give Young's Double Chocolate Stout from Eagle Brewery 7 out of 10. It's a good beer, but there's much better chocolate stouts around these days.