Starr Hill Raspberry Double Bass
There’s something about porters and stouts that just goes really well with a bit of raspberry flavor. That lightly tart and jammy influence matches wonderfully with your typical coffee and chocolate notes. Starr Hill knows this and saw fit to include a version of their Double Bass stout with raspberry in this years Box of Chocolates seasonal release.
This particular brew is a nice variant for a mixed pack like this, but I think had it been released on its own I’m not sure I would have been 100% sold on it personally. It’s definitely not a bad beer, in fact, I quite enjoyed it. The raspberry influence, however, just feels a bit heavy handed. It’s quite strong throughout the experience, adding a light tartness to the fruity flavors the swirl amongst the stout’s opaque depths.
I would, again for my own personal tastes, love for the raspberry influence to step back just a bit and allow the coffee and cocoa notes of the base stout to shine through a bit more. As it is, the fruit instead dominates too much, masking the rest of the beer for a good portion of the swallow.
That all said, Raspberry Double Bass is a solid offering for this tasty collection of stout variants. So far, the Toasted Coconut is still my favorite, with this particular bottle edging out the orange offering. I wonder if that will be the case after I tackle the final treat in Starr Hill’s seasonal release.
This is a review of a promotional sample.