6 Brews For Your Beer-Loving Sweetheart Slideshow

Chocolate Stout, Rogue Brewery

Sure, you could buy your sweetheart chocolates, but if they consider themselves a beer geek, youd do much better to bring them this chocolate stout. Rogue brings a strong enough bittersweet chocolate flavor to the table to warrant the name, but also balances it out very evenly with hops, caramel, and roasted malts. Think of it as the beer lovers equivalent to a cup of hot cocoa.

Sorachi Ace, Brooklyn Brewery

This special, limited-edition bottle from Brooklyn Brewery has been making waves in the beer community and has become a powerhouse selection in the brewerys repertoire. What makes it so special, exactly? For one, the unique sorachi ace hops, which produce a distinct lemony-buttery flavor. That, paired with the champagne yeast used to brew it, makes this bottle far more enjoyable than any bottle of bubbly, at least to the real hophead.

Three Philosophers, Brewery Ommengang

This cave-aged dark ale is guaranteed to bring a smile to your beer-loving Valentines face, especially if he or she has never tried a bottle. This Ommegang smash hit is mixed very subtly with cherry lambic, giving it a slight fruity note different from most other Quads (Belgian ales). The fruitiness of the beer is undeniable, and cherries, plums, and even strawberries come to mind.

Pliny the Elder, Russian River Brewing

Consistently mentioned on "best beers" lists (usually just behind its younger sibling, Pliny the Younger, the current "Best Beer in the World"), this much more affordable beer is nothing to sneer at, sibling rivalry be damned. The double IPA is the paradigm of the genre, with citrus and pine notes zinging around and a silky feel. Suffice it to say, if this is the beer your brew fanatic gets on Valentines Day, you will surely be marked a "keeper."

Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing Co.

KBS, or Kentucky Breakfast Stout, is, as one online reviewer called it, "like drinking chocolate cake." This Imperial stout shows deep chocolate tastes that match with sweet coffee flavors and fades into bourbon aftertastes (which makes sense considering the beer is aged in oak bourbon barrels for more than a year). While the bottle is considered hard to find, the effort definitely pays off at the end when you get to enjoy your very own pitch-black pint of bottled cake.

Abt 12, St. Bernardus

This famous Belgian beer has earned its cult-like following for a reason. Rated as one of the top Belgian beers on the market and known by hopheads everywhere, if you dont know one thing about your significant other besides they like good beer, this is a smart choice. The complex taste of this beer is usually described as spicy, malty, creamy, and slightly fruity with a warming, smooth finish.