Scotland’s famous Vault City brewery is best known for their exotic and wild sour beers, with all sorts of flavour combinations available. However, they are also gaining a reputation for equally whacky stouts. Today’s beer review is of ‘Mini Crunch’ a 6% ABV, toned down version of a previously released beer, titled ‘Crunch’ which came in at a hefty 15% ABV. Naturally, this is Vault City’s twist on the iconic honeycomb based chocolate bar Crunchie from Cadbury’s.

The beer pours a midnight black, with a lovely tanned head. Toffee and brown sugar aromas waft off the nose invitingly, letting you know exactly what this brew is based off. Surprisingly, the flavour of the beer is not overly sweet. The smooth, creamy base carries a plenty of milk chocolate, although I personally don’t get a strong taste of honeycomb coming through. The light, roasted bitterness you expect with a stout is certainly present on the finish giving the overall beer a good balance.

A quick note on the can art: How far can you push a design before the Cadbury’s legal team gets involved? I’d say this probably about as close as you can get. Fair use and all that! Instantly recognisable as the chocolate bar it is based off, from the colour scheme to the cross section chocolate bar pattern. Pretty iconic if you ask me.

I often tend to find that the flavour never quite matches expectation when comes to themed stouts. I’m often left wanting more of the flavour that inspired the creation. And I’m inclined to feel the same here, to a degree. The aroma on the beer is second to none and instantly makes you think of a Crunchie. The sugary, honeycomb smell as you snap the chocolate bar is precisely what you get here. However, I found that brown sugar, toffee flavour was missing from the beer or was more subtle than I would have personally have liked. That said I appreciated that I wasn’t just dumped with a sweet, syrupy assault to the taste buds that can often occur with these themed stouts. The chocolate flavour was lovely and the balance of bitter and sweet resulted in a very smooth drinking beer.

Score: 7.5/10

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I will certainly be on the hunt for the 15% ABV version of this for comparison, but if you fancy giving this riff on a Cadbury classic a go check out Morrisons. That is where I picked this one up.

Additional Information:

Style: Stout

Hops: Not Available

Malt: Not Available

IBU: N/A

ABV: 6%

Gluten Free: No

Vegan: No