Whole Foods Old Plowshare Stout

Brewed by North Coast Brewing Company
Style: Dry Stout
Fort Bragg, California USA

I liked this brew. Had a rreal nice flavor with a ’graininess’ to it which really lended to the character. It went down smooth and dry. a real find.

Bottled. Pours an almost clear dark brown, with a thin tan head that settles to a ring of foam. Aromas of coffee, molasses and leather with a touch of smoke. Medium and somewhat creamy body with fairly active carbonation. Chocolate and nuts with a roastly malt taste. Bitter dry finish. A bit light for a stout, but seems nicely balanced.

yea for this beer, this beer makes me happy because it is organic and taste excellent. i am a big supporter of organics and this is my favorite organic beer by far. it pours i lite colour for a stout redish brown the nose is slight with chocolate. it has a wonderful chocolate taste with coffe added in to it. thabk you north coast for making organic beer good.

2006 bottle consumed on 8/22/06.
Light brown body with some caramel hues and some deeper mahogany tints through the middle. Tan head is one-finger high, receding eventually, to cover and leaving some lacing. Medium-high clarity.
I had a bottle of this about a month ago and it was much worse than this, so I’ll just stick to this bottle. Plenty of light coffee, brief and smooth, without dominating the beer and quickly moving on to dark ashiness, a hint of bitter hops and a lush roastiness with medium-dry chocolate and just a smattering of creamy sugars to soothe the finish. Medium to medium-high in strength, no dissipation of the aroma, nor does it suggest a watery beer below. Fluffy and probably as "bright" as a dry stout gets.
The flavor has a little bit of chewy licorice mixed in with sticky toffee and chocolate. Coffee hits and opens things up, providing a deft hardness that helps keeps things from getting dull, sticky, soft....I really feel that a dry stout needs to keep your palate on its toes, and this one does. Not another soggy, vacuous, creamy, watery concoction. Full of flavor, to the end and the slightly high abv for the style does add to the effect. In this case, bigger is better, I think. Still, the carbonation is a bit too edgy, the texture a touch too filtered. Though there are far, far worse examples of filtration. No alcohol noted, clean, no yeastiness.

Bottle. Reddish dark brown colour with a little head. Light aroma of roastedness, coffee and some chocolate. Light roasted flavour with a bitter and dry finish.

12 oz bottle, via kp. Pours a clear dark mahogany under a fizzy beige head that settled to a whispy film. Aroma is roasty and chocolaty with hints of coffee, milk chocolate, light yeast, and some nuttiness. Best aroma from an organic beer I’ve rated. Flavor is more Brown Ale like than Stout like though. Alot of nuttiness and light bitterness, some roast on the finish though. Some coffee flavor as well. Mouthfeel is thinnish, watery in texture, and has quite a bit of fizzy carbonation. Overall, this was a decent beer, but not a good Stout. I would have guessed a Brown Ale from a blind tasting stanpoint.

Dark amber color, not totally opaque, with thin tan head. Aroma is very roasty, chocolate malt and sweet molasses. Classic stout flavor. Pretty much all the aroma notes plus I taste a bit of black patent. Pretty good stout but not more.

Pours an opaque dark brown with a frothy khaki head. Smells quite sweet and malty. Hops are evident. Hints of coffee, lightly astringent. Tastes of sweet malt and bitter coffee. Very bitter coffee, unpleasantly so. A bit haphazard in the flavor, things just don’t mesh well. An unpleasant coffee ground taste in the finish and aftertaste. A bit thin. Not that great.