Stouts, chocolate, and coffee are all things that go well together. Even better is when a beer is brewed with the idea of bringing out those elements. It can be a hard balance to strike, too much chocolate and you overpower the Stout elements, too much coffee and you miss the chocolate smoothness. The offerings from Southern Tier that I have tried recently have been good, hopefully the trend continues with the Mokah.

The Mokah, as expected, pours out an extremely dark brown almost black. There is a one finger mocha brown head that leaves almost no lacing on the glass. The aroma has a heavy chocolate smell with the slightest hint of coffee. And alcohol, enough to know it is there. Imagine if Starbucks was a bar and you ordered a Mocha Latte — that’s the aroma. There are also some elements of roasted malt and a hint of vanilla.

The flavors are overall sweet, with chocolate coming first followed by sweeter malt. There are some coffee hints, but overall it’s chocolate and malt. By virtue of having an 11% ABV there are some alcohol hints, but it is not at all unpleasant. I was really hoping for a stronger coffee flavor at the end, maybe some bitterness, but it never really came — just chocolate throughout.

With a name like Mokah I knew what to expect going in, chocolate and coffee, but I found more chocolate and less coffee than I wanted. The Mokah is smooth and easy drinking and hides it’s high ABV well, but I really wanted a bit more complexity and some more coffee flavors. The aromas came though in that respect. Overall a good beer, I mean come on you can’t go wrong with chocolate.

Rating

86
out of 100