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“It tastes like Chocolate World,” she said referring to Rogue Brewing’s Chocolate Stout. Not having been there ourselves, we asked our dining companion to elaborate on the Pennsylvania-based chocolate theme park that (apparently) takes one on a delicious journey from growing cacao through to the consumption of a delicious chocolate bar. We discussed this over some interesting take on pizza (baked potato pizza with bacon and ranch, anyone) and a seemingly never-ending supply of Rogue brew at Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers, a new restaurant opening up this month in North Phoenix.
We tried a lot of Rogue’s catalogue that night. Some were familiar favorites like the Juniper Pale Ale and Dead Guy Ale, but it was the Chocolate Stout that we kept coming back to.
See why and check out a few more photos from Mellow Mushroom’s pre-opening media event after the jump.
Tastes: like the bit of Hershey’s syrup that gets stuck on the end of your spoon when you mix it in to a ice-cold glass of milk. It’s chocolate, but it’s a dark chocolate. There is also a bit of coffee here without the acidity normally associated with it.
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Goes with: Probably not Cesar Salad Pizza, but that’s what we were drinking it with. It was pretty much that good. Rogue recommends drinking their chocolate stout with beef or dessert. We just decided to straight up call it a dessert itself.
Get yours: at just about any liquor store worth its salt or Papago or Taste of Topps if you want to sit down and enjoy the chocolate goodness.
Verdict: solid. There are a lot of good stouts to be had in this town, but the chocolate edge of Rogue’s Chocolate Stout can’t be matched by local favorites like the Oatmeal Stout at Four Peaks. Get your hands on some fast or give it away as a Christmas gift. It’s definitely on our list this year.
By the way, the verdict on Mellow Mushroom is pretty good too. It’d be nice if this new pizzeria wasn’t about as far North as you can get without calling it Flagstaff and some of the decorations (including a weird video installation of creepy faces) left us a little weirded out. But with several Rogue handles on tap and even a few from Papago and Four Peaks you can bet folks living around I-17 and Happy Valley will be slamming a few back while munching on baked potato pizza pie.
