We make home brew

Stout, stout, stouty stout stout.

Yesterday we tasted the Black Rock Miners Stout in addition to doing a brew that I’m sure Mikey will write up.  We also tasted the Gauss’ Law Hopped Cider as well as Mikey’s Australian Pale Ale.  Reviews of these will be coming as well.

Anyway, the stout!

First of all, it looked very much like a stout.  Very dark, decent head while pouring, although the head retention was lacking a little bit.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of aroma; the aroma was there, but quite very subtle.  I wasn’t able to get much out of it, but there were hints of brown sugar, chocolate, general sweetness and some malt and sticky smells as well.  There wasn’t much in terms of overt hops smells, but that is where some of the sticky sweet may have been coming from: floral mixing with the malt perhaps.

On the first taste, it was apparent that this is a weaker stout of 4% ABV with very little body, especially for a stout.

The subtle chocolate flavours continue as well as the subtle malt flavours, but other than that, the flavour is just “there.”  There wasn’t much to put my finger on, nothing obvious coming out to set it apart.  All the fairly standard stout flavours were there, but nothing to talk about.

As it was a stout, I wasn’t expecting any wild hops tastes, but, that being said, I couldn’t find much hops in there except for a mild amount of bitterness.  I would have liked maybe some floral or spicy flavours in there, just to add a bit of a twist.  Then again, I’ve been drinking a lot of imperial stouts lately, so maybe my pallet for stouts is a bit off…

Overall, it’s a good beer, but not great.  It’s very accessible but very middle of the road.  Because of this, it would make a fairly sessionable stout.  It would also make a good introduction to stout for those who don’t usually drink it.

In relation to food, these heavier beers generally go with heavier, meatier dishes, and this is no exception.  I think stouts are always good with barbecue, but I’d reserve this for a barbecued white meat like chick.  I also think that this stout is light enough to enjoy with a relatively hardy pasta with a good thick red sauce.

-Chas