Herevana – Thornbridge – Cocoa Wonderland
Almost a personal bucket list beer the Thornbridge Cocoa Wonderland, a surprise find at @BeerJerkNZ shop the Fridge and Flagon. I was quite gleeful.
I can’t tell you why it’s on a bucket list, or for how long it’s been on there, it just is. However it is listed at #35 on the best of its kind on one particular website.
Thornbridge Brewery: Thornbridge Cocoa Wonderland – is made in Bakewell, Derbyshire 🇬🇧England, and is a Porter – Flavored by style with a 6.8% ABV. This would be 1.77 standard drinking NZ.
The lid can go in the jars of lids, I will get around to doing something with them one day, I’ve had Jaiupur though so I might already have this one. Strange treasures.
There’s a lot of cocoa/chocolate when you open this. The pour is dark as you’d expect and I was of course disappointed with the lack of a head on the pour.
The aroma is really like chocolate cake, a good one.
There is both a richness and a bitterness with this, more the former than the latter, and it has a lovely lingering note about it at the finish.
The thing with the Cocoa/Chocolate and Lactose is that they add that fullness and that sweetness, and if you’re towards a sweet tooth then this is kryptonite.
Not only does this have a lovely aroma and looks (despite that head) and leaves some glorious lacing the glass, but it has that level of sweetness that I can’t resist supping away at, naggingly.
I’m enjoying that cocoa, the sweetness and facially the more familiar fruit notes that this carries. It is an easy beer to get on with.
The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 on the arbitrary number scale. Is it the 35th best Flavoured Porter style beer in the world, I don’t know. It is lovely beer though but not without things that you can be picky about. This has more ‘fullness’ than a straight Porter, but then what you have might lead you to be dissapointed that it isn’t fuller in the mouthfeel.
Kaleo have a new album called Surface Sounds. That’s good enough for me.
Herevana beers are those I drink at home, I’m not at some beer festival, like, for instance, Beervana, but am just in my kitchen, usually, dining room table, sometimes, or outside, occasionally, where I can take an average picture and write in real time about the beer that I’ve invested in, both in a monetary and emotional way.
Philip himself.
A full bodied, robust porter with natural mocha malt flavours from the complex malt grist, complementing the decadent additions of real chocolate to the maturation process.
Cocoa Wonderland is a full bodied, robust porter with natural mocha malt flavours from the complex malt grist, complementing the decadent additions of real cocoa beans to the maturation process.
A truly wonderful, award winning Chocolate beer. Initially brewed in collaboration with the girls at Cocoa, Ecclesall Road, Sheffield to celebrate their 10th anniversary.
Brewers Notes
Porter – Flavored
The Flavored Porter is a substantial, malty dark beer with a complex and flavorful dark malt character with a restrained bitterness and with a clear flavoring element. It may have a range of roasted flavors, generally without burnt qualities, and often has a chocolate-caramel-malty profile. It also feature an harmonious marriage of the additive and beer, but still recognizable as a beer. The additive character should be evident but in balance with the beer. (For example: fruits, spices, herbs, vegetables, coffee, honey, chocolate, maple sirup, chilies, nuts, vanilla, liquor – BUT not including Smoked malt, barrel-aging or a Sour element resulting from the brewing process)
A life just as ordinary 