I adapted the original American recipe for the Canadian palate, which meant reducing the amount of sugar in the batter. So if you want to re-adapt it for a US audience, aside from converting to standard measurements, there should be 1 cup of white sugar in the batter.

Nevertheless, I think this comes down to personal taste and depends on the chocolate you use/like, which is why I advised: “taste the batter before pouring it into the pan to see if you need to add more sugar.”

The original recipe didn’t mention anything about baking the cake in a water bath. I think the reason for doing so is to bake a cheesecake more gently so as to lessen drying it out. I’m not a big fan of pasty, verging on crumbly, cheesecakes. I like mine creamy. Because of the amount of stout and chocolate in this cheesecake, I find it turns out quite creamy. Thus, in this case, I think you can dispense with fussing around with a water bath.

I also recommend you include my suggestions on plating and pairing–and try it yourself, if you haven’t already. In going through the trouble to make such a fabulous cheesecake, why stop short of the ultimate beer experience? At the very least, I advise people should try pairing this cheesecake with different beers–RISs, fruit beers, fruit stouts–to find their optimal match.

On a final note, I said in my post that this is a classic Valentine’s dessert. If my meaning of that wasn’t quite clear, what it means is that this cheesecake is a great way to get women who do not like beer to change their mind. All women I’ve given this cheesecake to love it! Seeing the conversion is a beautiful thing.