Last Night's Tipple

I first had Young's Double Chocolate Stout at the Richmond Arms pub in Houston, which is one of the few bars that I actually like. They happened to have it on tap, and my friend Ben said that he thought it was pretty good. "It's double, it's chocolate, it's stout! What's not to like?" I thought, and so I ordered a pint. I thought that it was very good, and I ordered it subsequently just about every time they had it available. A couple of years later, I noticed it in bottles at the grocery store, but the effect just wasn't the same. There's something about the thick head that a nitrogenated tap gives a beer that a bottle can't replicate. A few years after that, I began to see it in those tallboy pub draft cans that have nitrogen capsules inside, and I tried it again. This time, it was the real deal. When poured from one of those cans, the beer has that thick, creamy head that is part of the reason that it is so good. I happened to be at Central Market yesterday and saw that they had Young's Double Chocolate Stout in the cans, and nostalgia overcame me. I bought a four-pack for $7.29. The stuff inside is as good as I remember. Despite the name, this is not a sweet stout. It's big-bodied and bitter, with flavors and aromas like strong dark coffee. Every now and then, I caught a whiff of dark chocolate. It's just delicious. It almost makes me want to go over the the Richmond Arms.