The never ending range of craft beer available to us never fails to amaze me and coupled with that is that craft brewers now have to use their imagination to come up with something a bit different to stay competitive. When perusing the off licence shelves recently I saw something that promised to be something different- a chocolate orange stout from James Brown Brews. This is truly an excellent stout, at first I was struggling to get the chocolate orange flavours but after a few further sips it start coming through and didn’t disappoint. I had this after a nice meal and found it to be an excellent ‘dessert’ beer!

It turns out that James Brown Brews is at present a one man show. Only set up since February of this year, he is currently using Brú Brewery on a contract basis but plans are afoot to set up his own brewery and expand. At present the Chocolate Orange stout is his only beer but in keeping with keeping things quirky his next venture will be a Rhubarb tart IPA which hopefully will be in production over the coming months. There is also the possibility of a limited edition whisky barrel brew for the Christmas market.

The chocolate orange stout is mainly sold in bottle format but it is available on tap in Mulligans of Stonybatter and there are plans to introduce it on tap at more pubs soon. It is available in bottle format in O’Briens off licence nationwide as well as various pubs.

The beer was also a winner of a bronze medal at the Alltech festival in February which for a first time brew is a fantastic achievement. This is a brewery I will be keeping a close eye on and I look forward to future brews!

Till the next time……