Whole Foods Old Plowshare Stout

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

Poured a clear deep chestnut color with a creamy beige head. Roasted and fruity aroma. Sweet and lightly smoked. Fruity and roasted with a sweet finish. Some coffee notes and a light bitterness.

Thanks to Markus for the bottle! Poured clear reddish-brown with a tall, fluffy cap of beige head and lots of rising carbonation. The aroma picked up sweet, sweet chocolate cake with milk chocolate and light earthy notes.. soft and enjoyable. The flavor was your classic dry stout with a little extra alcohol and body.. baker’s chocolate at the core surrounded by coffee grounds and faint smoke.. tacky chocolate on the finish. Medium-bodied and dry on the palate with a sourness that didn’t work too well.. tackiness held it up at points, keeping it from moving smoothly across the palate (I get that in a lot of "organic" beers.. not sure why).

Picked up at WIld Oats supermarket in Detroit. A dry stoat, but not overly. Chocolate primarily and some coffee aroma. Decent dark appearance. Serviceable stout.

Bottle (12oz). Deep ruby, nearly opaque, nice one inch lasting tan frothy head, nice drapes of lacing (3+). Very dry aroma, bitter chocolate, some coffee, burnt treacle, a fair amount of herbal bitterness. The taste is mostly chocolate and low-level fresh herbal bitterness - simple but damn that’s lovely. Creamy, luscious mouthfeel, sweet and nicely dry in the finish - damn this is good stuff, I’d drink this all the time!

Bottle 355 ml, Appearance: black body with brown clear light sipping at edges. Medium plus white-creamy top with ring of lace.3+ Aroma: rich roasted character, dry roasted feel is very imminent. Slight feel of brandy. High quality roasts of barley. Excellent nose.8+ Flavour/Palate: smoky, ash character with roasted bitterness. Soft bodied. Mild warmth of alcohol. Bit of grainy feel of old INKA. Very nice dry roasted stout.

Bottle. Pours dark brown with tan off white head quickly disipating to no head. Scent is sweet malt, chocolate. Small hop character. Thin and slightly oily. Sessionable with little flavor in this organic stout.

Bottle, courtesy of Brandon Orr. Very dark, as expected, with a foamy take. Licorice aroma. Tart with a bitter chocolate bite, tightly sweet. A bit odd, but drinkable. (#3447, 5/3/2008)

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.