Brewery: Bradfield
Beer: Farmers Stout
Style: Stout
ABV: 4.5%
Date: 7th April 2013
Venue: The Blue Bell, York (Pint)
Muddy black-brown appearance, quite a creamy texture for a stout. Slightly undefined sweetness makes it veer towards milk stout taste but there’s a bit of nuttiness in there too. Drinkable but fairly nondescript.
Rating: 3 (Worth a shot)
Brewery: Mikkeller
Beer: Milk Stout
Style: Stout
ABV: 7.0%
Date: 3rd March 2013
Venue: Port Street Beer House, Manchester (Half-Pint)
Black with a small off-white head. Powerful aroma of milky cocoa exudes appealingly and when you plunge into the thing the taste is absolutely brilliantly judged. It’s very easy to get sweet stouts wrong and find them coming out on the side of cloying but this is anything but. Really well balanced between the sweetness of chocolate and mocha-esque bitterness. Excellent effort from the Danish brewing masters.
Rating: 4.5 (Highly Recommended)
Brewery: Ilkley
Beer: The Mayan
Style: Stout
ABV: 5.3%
Date: 9th February 2013
Venue: The Tap, York (Pint)
A chocolate and chipotle stout called ‘The Mayan’; I should have seen the warning signs coming shouldn’t I? To say this is a fiery stout would be something of an understatement. There are slightly hints of chocolate on the nose but there is also a very tempestuous chili aroma breaking through, and that really explodes when you taste the thing. The first half of the pint was just about palatable but the remainder was very difficult to drink. You can barely taste the chocolate at all, and strong chili stout just isn’t something to savour really is it? A lesson learned I suppose.
Rating: 2 (Not Recommended)
Brewery: Wentworth (ENG)
Beer: Oatmeal Stout
Style: Stout
ABV: 4.8%
Date: 4th February 2013
Venue: The Maltings, York (Pint)
This is described as ‘deeply delicious’ on the clip but isn’t quite that good. It’s pretty bland for the most part. You get the standard features of an average stout, but with a slightly unfortunate watery finish. Easy to slug down for a couple of pints, but probably not worth returning to another time. I can only be grateful that it isn’t as horribly cloying as the Plum Stout Wentworth also produce from time to time, which has the dubious honour of being a contender for the worst beer I’ve ever tasted. Don’t hurry out of your way for this one then, but consider it if you are looking for a decent session stout.
Rating: 2.5 (Potential Pint)
Brewery: Wall’s County Town (ENG)
Beer: The Darkside
Style: Stout
ABV: 4.4%
Date: 4th February 2013
Venue: The Tap, York (Pint)
A milk stout, this one. Left Hand Milk Stout is up there at the top of this particular sub-style, but Wall’s make a decent effort with this one. It’s nothing spectacular. The aroma in particular is rather nondescript, but they haven’t made it too sweet, which is always the danger. It’s dark enough to merit the name, for certain, but it’s not really memorable enough to bother having again. The main problem is the lack of body. You can just glug it down, but there’s not enough taste there to make the aforementioned glugging worthwhile, which is disappointing. Still, points for trying.
Rating: 2.5 (Potential Pint)
Brewery: Magic Rock (ENG)
Beer: Dark Arts
Style: Stout
ABV: 6.0%
Date: 4th February 2013
Venue: Pivni, York (Pint)
Described as a ‘surreal stout’ by excellent Huddersfield brewers Magic Rock, Dark Arts is a rather tempting proposition on a chilly winter night. The overwhelming presence on the nose is malt. This is a stout with some backbone to it. It’s quite easy to drink, with a bitter chocolate taste the most prevalent. Does it really deserve the ‘surreal’ moniker? Well it’s nothing out of the ordinary really but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthy. Magic Rock are producing tons of great beers at the moment, and this is another one to add to the ever growing list.
Rating: 4 (Recommended)
Brewery: Old Dominion (USA)
Beer: Oak Barrel Stout
Style: Stout
ABV: 6.1%
Date: 4th February 2013
Venue: Pivni, York (Bottle)
A rather sensational stout this one. Appearance wise it’s nothing out of the ordinary. You get that lovely black look and the thin head, but then you smell the thing and all of a sudden the senses go crazy. The depth of the aroma here is really quite astonishing. The bottle mentions vanilla, and there’s plenty of that. There are also hints of chocolate and coffee, with a nice earthiness mixed in as well. It would be easy for the taste to fall by the wayside in comparison but thankfully there’s no danger of that. The vanilla flavour is prominent, but is wonderfully complimented by a roasty coffee-bean like sensation that really sits well on the palate. This isn’t a particularly hefty stout so you could probably knock back a few of these if in the mood.
Rating: 4.5 / 5 (Highly Recommended)
The Beer Press 