I don’t know what it is about the holiday season, but there are so many good beers!   Brooklyn Brewing’s seasonal Imperial Stout, called Black Chocolate Stout is yet another.  At 10% ABV it’s a big, and heavy beer, excellent for the deep winter evenings.  The nose is roasted cocoa, and the middle is sweet with chocolate malt, bitter with coffee, and finished with a warming alcohol and sweet chocolate. The sweet and the bitter notes seem to stand strongly on their own…I would prefer it a bit more if they were blended and balanced each other out a bit better instead, but that aside, this is a good, strong winter stout.