Whole Foods Old Plowshare Stout

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

Pours a dark brown with a thin, light tan head. Big, sweet, syrupy malt aromas fill the air, along with some caramel, and chocolate cream. Maybe some toffee and gingerbread as well. The flavor has a good dose of coffee and caramel mixed. Pretty sweet with some chocolate syrup notes in there too. Really surprised me how profound the flavors were. Just medium bodied, but had some roasty characters to it as well. A bit sticky and syrupy on the palate, and finishes dry and sweet. I wasnt expecting much to be honest, but very drinkable.

Bought at regular bottle store. Nothing to do with Whole Foods. Almost black color. Modest head. Medium body. Lots of roasted malt flavor without some stout’s sweetness.

Bottle. Poured black with ruby highlights. Frothy tan head that settles to a ring and left good lace. Aromas of coffee and milk chocolate. The flavor was much the same with a little roast coming out also. Medium body with a light coffee bitter aftertaste.

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.

12 oz bottle. Pours dark brown with beige head. The aroma is quite chocolatey with some medium roast coffee and a little bit of almond. The flavor starts off with a candy-bar chocolatey sweetness, but then some coffee bitterness mellows it out a little. Some nutty tones emerge in the middle, but it thins and gets a touch carbonic in the finish. Nice dry, ashy aftertaste, though.

Bottle into a snifter. Beer pours a clear, very dar, nearly opaque brown color with a large, light brown, frothy, mostly and quickly diminishing head. The aroma is heavily malty with pleasing notes of slightly husky, roasted grain and coffee; Moderately hoppy with a note of resin/pine; Moderately yeasty with notes of damp basement and cheese; Trace miscellaneous notes of cinnamon, honey and coconut. The flavor is lightly bitter, moderately acidic and lightly sweet with an average-length, slighly warm, lightly bitter, moderately acidic finish. The body is light, the texture is watery and the carbonation is average.

Bottle. Nice stout. Pours dark almost black with a nice head. Aromas of toast, molasses and roasted malts. Flavors of a cocoa, chocolate, a bit of caramel. Has just the right amount of carbonation and body, not overpowering.

Pours a dark brown and looked reddish brown in the glass. The head is thick, beige, creamy. The aroma is prominent coffee, sweet, roasted malt, caramel, earthy. The flavor has a prominent roasted character, caramel, unfermented sugars. Very carbonated palate. Decent.