Shed Carnival Stout

Brewed by The Shed Restaurant & Brewery
Style: Foreign Stout
Stowe, Vermont USA

Draught pint at the brewpub, January 21 2007. Completely opaque black with no head whatsoever; well, it’s not on nitro anyway....fruity-chocolaty nose is interesting at first, with coconut seeming to form a principle component....later on caramel, weak coffee and some whisky-bourbon notes emerge.....on the tongue, similarly, a mishmash of flavors, not terribly well integrated, with a sweet/sour lactic quality growing in domination through the pint, burnt-chocolate/espresso notes overwhelming everything else at the finish, orangepeel hazily appearing and disappearing, and, unfortunately, the all-too-typical strong mineralic content of the water contributing to an overall grittiness in texture (as well as killing the head, I expect)....alcohol subtly apparent. Well, this one didn’t work though there’s some effort apparent.