Bell's Week: Special Double Cream Stout

Cream? What an understatement! This beer is creamy, creamy, creamy, with a silky soft mouthfeel that might as well be stout-flavored Cool Whip. Super creamy. Achingly creamy. Delightfully creamy. It's utterly delicious, akin to a sweet, dry Irish stout -- Guinness is the best known of this style -- but with the heavy-bodied awesomeness of a milk stout.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, launching into a review without an introduction.Bell's Special Double Cream Stout is a winter beer that ducks away from the bitter, roasted approach of many stouts and instead goes for smoooooth and creamy.

And that it is. It's fluffy and puffy like a dessert, silky like a milk sotut (but it's not a milk stout), and overall delicious. Jim,. my coauthor on A Year of Hitchcock, ranks this as one of his favorite beers. It's easy to see why. While I don't rate it quite as highly -- it's excellent, but not a life-changing brew -- this is truly a stellar beer. If I could get this all the time, it would be on my regular purchase list. I was initially going to finish Bell's week on a different beer, but decided to do it on a good note ... and this is a DAMN GOOD NOTE.

Bell's, you bastards, why don't you distribute in New Jersey!?