Day 81, 3.22.11., Tournay Black - Belgian Stout

While stouts are quickly becoming one of my new favorite styles, Belgium is quickly becoming the nation of origin I'm most drinking.  So a Belgian stout ought to be perfect, right?
In other news, Lesley likes to buy me presents and she always picks good stuff.  Her newest find: a handsome new tasting glass!  Talk about a great wife.
Anyway, Tournay looks like the perfect stout.  It's black as night and has a fat foamy beige head.
The nose and palate of this beer are both extremely subtle.  on the nose, just a hint of ground coffee and dark roasty malty notes.  There's a tiny sherry aroma, and a fleeting bit of maple.
As I sip, I get a bit of brown sugar and a nice (albeit subtle again) bitter balance to the sugary malty body.
My second beef with this stout, after its lack of assertiveness in aroma and flavor, is the fact that it is quite thin.  It drinks more like a porter than a real stout.  All in all, it turned out a fairly disappointing beer for me.
7.6% ABV.  5 out of 10.

Day 66, 3.7.11., Moylans - Dragoon's Irish dry stout

Moylan's is a brew pub over there in Novato.  We stopped by after my brother's art opening, which is also going on over there in Novato.  The brewpub is in a sort of stripmall area, next to a Carl's Jr.  It's better on the inside.

I tried a pint of their Dragoon's Irish Dry Stout.  It's a dark black, opaque beer with a light amount of beige head.  On the nose, there are roasty buttery notes.  Sweet wine and sherry aromas are in there too.
The palate has some interesting chalky minerality as well as more roasty dark malt flavor.  And just as the name promises, the beer finishes delightfully dry.
The one rather negative part of this beer is it's thin body.  The mouthfeel is not much bigger than a pale ale or even pilsner.
Pretty good.
8% ABV
6 out of 10

Day 65, 3.6.11., Green Flash, Double Stout

The next beer we tried at The Warehouse was Green Flash Double Stout.  Green Flash is located in one of the best beer cities in California, and even the US, San Diego.  I've tried one of their other beers, West Coast IPA, and It sealed my positive opinion of this brewery.
The Double Stout is an awesome beer.  Incredibly complex, delicious, wonderful!  I give it a 9 out of 10.  Here's why:
The beer poured dark black and opaque.  It's thick as motor oil and with a thick beige head that offers good lacing once it slowly recedes.  Good start.  The nose has coffee and bitter cocoa notes, and then a surprising malted barley aroma.  It is not a roasted or dark malt aroma, but the aroma of fresh, dry, pale malt.  It's not an aroma I've experienced in a stout before, but it's an interesting and intriguing surprise.
This beer has a lovely rich creamy body and velvety mouth-feel, paired with it's chocolaty flavors and terrific maltyness.  I love this stout.  Highly recommended!
8.8% ABV, 45 IBU

Day 43, 2.12.11, Harvey & Son - Imperial Double Extra Stout - 2003

I was very excited about this beer.  Harvey & Son's  Imperial Double Extra Stout.  I mean it's a four word name containing three descriptors.  It sounded awesome.
It was not awesome.  I only realized just after pulling the cork that this was a 2003 vintage beer, questionable even for a 13% barley wine, but here we have a 9% ABV stout.  It's 8 years old, and just past its prime.
This beer poured inky black, a good start!  But when I saw almost zero head, I was suspicious.  On the nose, dried purple fruit and balsamic vinegar...
I tentatively sipped and was met with aggressive sour cherry character, more vinegar and sherry.  The sherry notes were actually not bad, but they were way to strong, and with everything else going on, it was just undrinkable.  And I tried, I choked down about a third of it before it was pitched in the kitchen sink.
I like where they were headed with this beer, but it was just too far gone.  I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a 2008+ vintage.  So for being absolutely awful and still making me want to try another one, I award 2 out of 10.

Day 36, 2.5.11., Lost Abbey - Serpent's Stout

I stopped by to say hey to Charlie over at the Trappist.  He wasn't there, so I had a beer anyway.  The nice young lady behind the bar told me that Serpent's Stout is one of her favorites on the current tap list so I grabbed a glass.
Lost Abbey is a part of Port Brewing, located just north of San Diego.  I think this is the first beer I've tried from them, although I've had a few from Port.
Serpent's stout is an absolutely lovely (Imperial?) stout.  It's rich and creamy and black and opaque with a gorgeous velvety beige head.  The nose is dusty with hints of chocolate and coffee.  If you've ever tried a very high percentage cacao chocolate bar (70%+), you know that chocolaty mouth drying bitterness.  That flavor is all over the body of this beer.  It's 10.5% ABV, but the beer comes off very smooth and leaves you with only a hint of just how much alcohol it contains.  This is just a really nice, well made stout.  I like this beer very much.  8 out of 10.

Day 29, 1.29.11, Echigo Stout

I tried Echigo Stout while working on a sweet paint job in the bedroom that will be my son's when he arrives in 3 months.  Holy crap.
Back to the beer. 
It's ok.
The color is strangely red/brown rather than the traditional black we see with stouts.  I could definitely see right through the thing when I held it up to a bit of light. 
The nose offered coffee and roasty dark malt.  And the same was there on the palate too, but all the flavors were just so subtle that it came off as kinda bland.  Just not much going on.
I Found Echigo to be quite thin although it did have a fairly velvety mouthfeel. 
It's by no means a bad beer, just not very dynamic.  Didn't have a lot of standout character.
5 out of 10.

Day 25, 1.25.11, Lion - Stout

Lion stout comes to us from Sri Lanka, the small teardrop of a country off the south east tip of India.  This is a country well known for its tea, coconuts and rubber as well as a 25 year civil war with the Tamil Tigers.  And in their down time, the people of Sri Lanka make beer and put it in a bottle emblazoned with a lion.  
As a general rule, I hesitate when I hear of a beer brewed in a region of tropical climate.  They tend to be both light and awful.
Neither is the case with Lion Stout.  It's dark as a good stout ought to be.  The nose offers notes of coffee and earthy spice.  Milk chocolate stands out on the mid-palate, followed by a good bitter bite at the back.  There are also yeasty notes to the palate.  The body is a bit thin, but it sports a good, strong, creamy head.  The beer also had a good amount of what appeared to be yeast sediment at the bottom.  
All in all, this is a nice little stout.
There was a bit of a sour tinge to the beer though, which came off a bit like a defect to me and made me shave off a bit on the score.  Still though, I'll call it a 7 out of 10.  A nice easy drinking strong (8% ABV) stout.  A nice winter pint.

Day 17, 1.17.11, Drakes - Dry Stout

Another after-work pint at Bloodhound, this time with Jorie and Kevin, two of the other bartenders with whom I work.
I tried Drakes Dry Stout.  I've always like Drakes, especially their 1500 Pale Ale and their excellent IPA.  Drakes is located down in San Leandro, and I used to see them on tap all over the east bay.  Now That I spend less time over there and more time across the bay, I don't see it nearly as much.  So thank you Bloodhound.
This stout was poured on nitrogen, (into a mason jar unfortunately, the only negative of Bloodhound) and is dark chocolaty brown and has a thick creamy head.  It's 4.7% ABV.  It has a really nice velvety, creamy mouth-feel and a surprisingly light body.
On the palate there is roasty malt bitterness and nice hints of cocoa.  Overall though, it's just a nice, mellow, easy drinking stout.  It's rather simple and unpretentious, just a good beer for drinking.  7 out of 10.