Play Brew Co Minty Breath Beer (The Wee Beer Shop @WeeBeerShop) By @SpectreUK

It's Saint Patrick's Day on Sunday, and I fancy a stout to celebrate. I do have a bottle of Guinness in my beer fridge, but I guess most beer and stout lovers know what that tastes like. So, Cinabar found me this Minty Breath, Dark Chocolate and After Dinner Mint Stout to write about instead. I do love After Eight Mints, and generally receive a box in with my other Christmas presents.

At 5.7% in volume, Minty Breath was brewed in Middlesbrough, by Play Brew Company. Barley, oats, wheat, milk sugar, cocoa, hops, yeast and natural flavourings (I'm guessing mint) were added in the brewing. The back of the can suggests flavours of hops, mint, and dark chocolate. It being a heavy stout, there may be a crisp flavour of hops with sweetness of chocolate and malts, and a refreshing minty flavour.

On opening the can there was a smell of creamy sweet chocolaty goodness with a minty accompanying aroma. There was an underlying minty freshness to this deep dark stout. The mint tickled the crisp herbal hops to begin with. The mint doffed it's hat to the sweet roasted chocolate malt and slightly wheaty oatiness of the stout. The mint struggled to march through the roasted coffee at the back of the flavour. Yet march through the coffee the mint flavour did, and off merrily into the aftertaste.

I found this a rather flavoursome jovial stout. A pleasing bite, followed by a creamy chocolate sweetness, with a stout body, and that unfamiliar minty taste flowing straight through. Great stuff. I'll have to have another pint of this Minty Breath when I have some After Eight Mints around Christmas time.