What's a birthday without cake? Nothing, and Abbeydale have made this chocolate cake stout a powerhouse of flavour to celebrate their 25th birthday.
Brewed as a part of a series of beers celebrating this milestone, Indulgence is a chocolate cake stout that has chocolate in its very DNA. Right down to including drinking chocolate in the ingredients to really make sure the chocolate flavour is as intense as possible.
The other beers in the Abbeydale birthday range include a return of Abbeydale's popular American Brown Ale Brimstone which was retired in 2016 and barley wine Last Rites. There are also a bunch of new celebratory beers like Indulgence and Celebration, a mimosa quarter IPA, to mark the occasion.
The aroma is, as expected, incredibly chocolatey. With loads of rich and sweet cacao smells combining with a hint of vanilla to make it very cakey.
The pour is thick and a little dense, with those chocolate aromas pouring out and filling my nostrils as I filled the glass. The texture is smooth and dense too, with a little syrup-style feel in the mouth that gives it a lot of body. The flavour is predominantly rich chocolate, with some of the cacao bitterness balancing out the sweetness of the chocolate to give it a well rounded flavour.
The aftertaste is a little more bittersweet, similar to eating dark chocolate where there's the really rich flavour that's not all about the sugar, making it very morish and rich.
Abbeydale are no strangers to unsual can designs and Indulgence is no different, with a textured can giving it a real quality feel in the hand. The background is alternating shades of brown (or chocolate, if you're being picky) with the Abbeydale ruins that have become synonymous with the brewery present in the background.
The main image is a crow, or a raven (it's part of the corvus genus whatever it is) sat atop a chocolate diamond which sits in front of piles of chocolate and a vanilla flower, providing some nice contrast between brown and cream and a lot of detail to look at.
The diamond is a nice representation of Abbeydale's 25th birthday and there's even a silver badge on the front denoting it as part of the birthday range which is a nice design touch. The bio and ingredients on the back provide some more information about the beer and what to expect. It's a great can, a really striking design and very cleverly thought out.
Indulge in this chocolate delight for just £4.25 online from Beer Shop HQ or, like us, check it out in your local bottleshop who may have a few lying around.