Clown Shoes - Chocolate Sombrero

Hey all! It's Wednesday night and I'm a little bored. So what better way to cure boredom and get a good buzz going, than crack open something new and review it?

Tonight I'm drinking another beer from Clown Shoes out of Ipswich, MA, this is their Chocolate Sombrero which is a 9% stout that they are dubbing a "Mexican Style Chocolate Stout". This sounds good just from the name and being from San Diego, I'm no stranger to Mexican chocolate. I'm a big fan. The kicker on this beer is they brewed it with ancho chile, cinnamon, and some vanilla extract. So on top of all the roasted malts and chocolate malts, we get some ancho and cinnamon with a touch of vanilla. Enough rambling, let's get Chocolate wasted!

Chocolate Sombrero pours out a very dark brown to black color with about a finger of a somewhat creamy head. Admittedly, I didn't pour very vigorously so I only ended up with about a fingers worth. It's pretty damn dark though maybe with the slightest bit of mahogany down around the bottom of the glass. Bad lighting though probably doesn't help much here. Overall, this looks like a standard stout. Let's get the nose.

So first thing I notice is a sweet vanilla smell from that extract. That's followed up immediately by a combination of cinnamon and ancho chile. There's some pepper skin in here too. I've had some chile/cinnamon stouts before and this one definitely smells the best so far. I'm getting some sweeter chocolates in here as well. Definitely reminds me of that mexican chocolate. Rich and a bit spicy. But really the pepper in this is the thing I'm getting more of as I go back for more. This is a very interesting smelling stout. Let's see if the Chocolate Sombrero delivers like it does in the nose.

First thing I get is some chocolate and vanilla. It's incredibly smooth and creamy. As the chocolate fades a bit the vanilla carries on into the middle of the mouth where I'm picking up that cinnamon and some ancho chiles. There's more of that mexican chocolate coming through here too. The spice of this beer is really bringing out the chocolate. Back of the tongue there's a slight bit of heat from the ancho. It's actually very nice. There's quite a bit of roast here too. A bit of roasted dark malts and chocolate really stand out on the back end.

As I let the flavors from Chocolate Sombrero linger in my mouth the chile and cinnamon spice really dance around the tongue. It's almost like I ate a red hot if anyone remembers those little candies. It's very nice. The pepper skin sort of linger along the sides of the mouth as well.

So overall, this beer is really solid. I'm not a big fan of beers that are brewed with Chiles, but this is fantastic. The way the ancho and cinnamon play off the chocolate and vanilla so seamlessly is great and really makes this beer worth it. If you can get this I'd recommend it. It's not mind blowing, but just incredibly good.

Rating: A (and seriously, these labels on the Clown Shoes beers are fucking awesome!)