ABV: 6.3%
IBU: 26

King Louie Toffee Stout from O’Fallon Brewery has legit ties to the actual King Louis XIV. The chocolatier that O’Fallon collaborated with on this royal brew, Bissinger’s, goes WAY back. All the way to 1668 when His Kingness decreed the Bissinger family “Confiseur Imperia”. I don’t know what that means but it sounds really impressive.

I first tasted Toffee Stout at the weekly Beer School put on by Cicero’s in St. Louis. This free hour of beer education, and also drinking, is excellent. On my visit, the head brewer from O’Fallon was on stage going through 5 of their brews. We learned that Bissinger’s created 600 pounds of special toffee just for this beer. And that the brewery workers will never agree to make this one again due to the tremendous effort needed to turn a wildebeest’s weight in toffee into drinkable beer.

One critical tidbit gleaned from this event was allowing the beer to warm up before drinking. I’ve tried cask pours when available but until now can say I really prefer my beer ice cold. Tasting this Toffee Stout back-to-back ice cold versus room temperature is like having 2 different beers. Cold gives a nice, roasty stout flavor profile. But letting it sit for 20 minutes releases totally different notes. I’m not a fan of toffee by itself but somehow, in this beer, it’s creamy and heavenly. The vanilla, caramel and chocolate flavors are perfectly blended and balanced. It was a struggle not to guzzle.

Willy Wonka invented the three course meal chewing gum. I haven’t found it on the shelves yet but a lot of beers purport to be “dessert in a bottle” or some other magical beer-food concoction. I’ve tried some of them and have yet to find one that fits the bill. But this King Louie Toffee Stout really is like a plate of gooey, chocolaty dessert converted into 12 fluid ounces of beer.

Follow Niel on Twitter @WaveTrainLLC