While many people would admit to hating surprises, it seems they are really referring to unpleasant surprises.  Who doesn’t enjoy a nice surprise?

I was pleasently surprised by this weeks Friday beer; St. Peter’s Cream Stout.  The adage, “you get what you pay for,” certainly had me expecting a mediocre beer, as I believe it has for many…just read the reviews for the Cream Stout HERE at the Beer Advocate.  I think this presupposition renders many reviewers helpless to presupposition as they embrace an economical beer like St. Peter’s.  Such is not the case with this not-so-humble reviewer, whose motto (stolen a bit from Andrew Zimmern) is, “If it looks good, drink it!”

As the cap popped off the Cream Stout, there was not an enormous ruch of carbonation escaping the bottle.  The pour was proved to be a foreshadowing the mellow texture to come:  smooth, creamy, and moderately carbonated.  A beautiful khaki color head–about a centimeter thick–lazily hung around the surface of the beer.

The sweet bouquet that greeted my nose was comprised of sweet malts, hazelnut, chocolate, and striking coffee aroma.  It looked good and smelled good, so I drank it.

There was a surprising wine quality about the beer.  Surprising, because the ABV was only 6.5%.  The sweet roasted malts were outstanding.  The Chocolate flavor was not limited to the aftertaste, but was present the entire duration of the beer in my mouth.  There seemed to be a slight hoppy finish (very slight) that offset the chocolatey malts nicely.  The texture all the while was extremely smooth.  The warmer the beer got, the better it tasted.

Overall, this was an excellent English stout, in my opinion.  I could have easily put down five or six more without having overdosed on the sweet flavor.  Fortunately for me and my highly evolved sense of morality, I only had one in my refrigerator.