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A chocolate mole stout called Hellboy – why not?

They had me at chocolate. And then at mole. And certainly at stout. 
Well, they had me at Hellboy, too. What a great name for a beer, I thought.
Put them all together and what have you got? A helluva a beer!
Take a guess what the alcohol percentage is. Yes, of course, it’s 6.66 percent.

Hellboy is from Gigantic Brewing Co. of Portland, Oregon. It burns! The finish is pure chile pepper. My lips are afire!

It wasn’t until I took a break and looked closer at the bottle to learn Hellboy is not just a name, it’s a comic book. Well, I did know about the Hellboy comic books (certainly not the more pretentiously named graphic novels), and I’ve seen the two Ron Perlman Hellboy movies, but no inkling that that Hellboy had a line of beers.

Turns out in honor of the 25th anniversary of the first Hellboy comic, Gigantic released six different beers honoring characters from the Dark Horse Comics series. The chocolate mole stout – dedicated to the character Liz Sherman – is number two in the series.
The first Hellboy, according to the brewery’s website, “featured a maple syrup and pancake profile.” It was released in March, in anticipation of Hellboy Day on March 23.

No. 3 was Johann Kraus Citrus Wit. No. 4 was Abe Sapien, an indigo-hued East/West Coast IPA. No. 5 was Blood Queen, a cranberry yuzu sour. The sixth and final beer in the series was Trevor Bruttenholm, a British barleywine.
The beers – 666 cases of each – were released seven weeks apart, and each weighed in at 6.66 percent, except for the barleywine, which was 9.99 percent.

I guess I’m not that much of a fan because Hellboy is the only name I recognize. But the beers all sound interesting, well, maybe except for the blue IPA. That sounds as gimmicky as the blue Romulan ale sold at Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. The Romulan “ale” was actually a lager made by a brewery in El Salvador. The Star Trek Experience closed its doors 10 years ago and Romulan ale is no longer made, however you can buy a sixer (“No for consumption, this is for collectible purposes only.”) on e-Bay for 125 simoleons.

Still, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on an Abe Sapien and the other iterations of this Hellboy tribute beer, no for collectible purposes but for consumption only. Especially the Trevor Bruttenholm British barleywine. Yum!