Cherry Chocolate Beer - O'Fallon Brewery, O'Fallon

O'Fallon took a decidedly different direction with their Christmas seasonal. Cherries and chocolate don't really scream Christmas to me... but they're two flavors I enjoy just the same. I had a few of these beers last year and I remember enjoying them. They weren't my favorite holiday beers by any means, but they were good. When I poured this year's Cherry Chocolate and took a whiff of it, I remembered why I liked it so much. The aroma is just like that of a chocolate covered cherry. This beer was off to a great start, but would it all go like I remember? Will I like this beer as much as I did last year?

Um, no. Not even close... The aroma is great, it smells better than actual chocolate covered cherries. Where it all falls apart is in the flavor category. When you take a sip of this beer, you notice the chocolate flavor right away. It does taste more like milk chocolate than the darker chocolate you'd expect with covered cherries. There is a little extra sweetness in this beer that tastes more like caramel than cherries... not that those two flavors are that close, but there really is no cherry flavor in this beer. Aside from the milk chocolate in this beer, there really isn't any other flavor.

I really don't know what happened in the past year for my impression of this beer to change so much. Did the recipe change? I noticed this year's beer is brewed in Steven's Point, not O'Fallon... perhaps something was lost in the move. Either way, this beer is a complete failure compared to what I remember. What's more, is that it is a failure compared to it's own aroma. If the beer tasted more like what it smells like, it'd be a completely different experience.