Last December, I got an e-mail from the folks at the Terrapin Brewery announcing the latest in their series of one-off brews, something they call the Side-Project series. The current brew, fourth in the series of releases, was called Dos Cocoas Chocolate Porter and would hit store shelves just in time for Valentines Day. Now that's marketing!

Side Project beers are only released once, though if they are popular enough one assumes they might make a repeat appearance, perhaps as a regularly produced brew. This edition really piqued my interest, however, mostly because of the seasoning: chocolate! Chocolate beer is nothing new, of course, and you've probably heard of, or even tasted examples the likes of Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock.

Terrapin uses real Ecuadorian cocoa to make Dos Cocoas. In fact, they use two kinds, cocoa powder in the brew and cocoa nibs on which the beer was aged. The base beer, a porter, sounded like the perfect match to add depth, and I was expecting  a glass of chocolaty beer goodness when I got my hands on this one.

First, though, I would have to get my hands on this one. That proved to be the trick, since Dos Cocoas disappeared off store shelves faster than any Side Project beer I had seen since the first one. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who wanted to try this one. After hunting far and wide, however, I managed to score a bottle about two miles from my home (ironically enough). Here's what I thought.
 
Terrapin Dos Cocas Chocolate Porter pours to a dark brownish black color with a light creamy tan head formation and a lightly chocolaty nose. A sip reveals a surprisingly thin body, thinner than I expected for a special one-off beer like this. There is definitely chocolate, though, smooth and creamy like dark chocolate pudding, silky and seductive in its own way. A hint of fruity raisin as apparent, too. It marries nicely with the roasted malt chocolaty flavor, and emerges again in the well-balanced finish, too.

That said, I think I'd like a bit more of it here (ok, I'm a chocoholic), and definitely more body. Not that this is a bad beer, mind you, it surely isn't, and I'd be happy to have it regularly available to me. But as a Side-Project, and one I paid $6.50 for a 22-ounce bottle of at that, I'm expecting more, and I didn't get it. A Young's Chocolate Stout would have done me better, and at about half the price.

I'm glad I tried it, and if you see a bottle, you should too. But all in all this "Side Project" strikes me as more on the average side than the spectacular.