Anything you do after midnight can be hazardous, especially recreationally. This stout though is about as hazardous as a pillow fight.
Brewed in collaboration with Brew Dog in York for the 2020 Collabfest, Hazard After Midnight is a mint chocolate chip ice cream stout that is not thick enough for a flake, but why you would sully mint chocolate chip ice cream with a flake is beyond me.
A twist on Turning Point's mint pale ale Chip Hazard, hence the name of this one. The 'After Midnight' part a nice nod to the darkness of stout.
I was expecting big hits of mint and creamy chocolate, but the aroma is actually a little flat with just a slight minty aroma with a little sweetness too. The pour is thin, expected given that it's only 5.7% but it's the carbonation that's the real surprise. Stout's are normally low-carbonated but this is as fizzy as a pale ale which is unexpected and not particularly pleasant.
This high fizz/thin body combination makes it quite hard to identify any stand-out flavours as they vanish quickly in the mouth. It does have a creamy, sweet flavour that is nice but definitely not the minty, creamy ice cream sweetness I was expecting.
The aftertaste is where the mint flavour becomes more obvious but it comes very late in the profile, once the sweetness and subtle malt flavour has faded, it's more of a cool sensation of mint in the back of the throat rather than and out and out mint flavour.
Brown is always a risky colour for a can as it runs the risk of just fading into the background, but with the flecks of bright mint green and the same mint coloured text contrasting well with the chocolate brown it actually works.
The original mint pale ale from Turning Point has the opposite colour scheme with the mint green background and brown flecks, more akin to the appearance of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
The big, bold lettering on the front is really effective in catching the eye along with the unusual pattern. There's a little more information on the back of the can which doesn't take up much space, but provides ingredients and dietary information along with the Brew York shield to denote the collaboration.
Difficult to track down online, we got this from our local bottle shop Beer Central so we would recommend you check out local bottle shops to find one of these.
