At Pub 27 in Pompeii
Great Beer for the New Year #10: Stone Woot Stout, Escondido, California
Date: January 15, 2018
The Story— We’ve sung the praises of the collaboration beers coming from Stone’s brewery in Berlin and we’ve sort of left Escondido alone in the process. We’re a bit late in getting to the 2018 edition of this yummy stout, but better late than never.
Stone has long brewed some of the tastiest big beers at working man’s price. Arrogant Bastard may have been best bargain in craft beer at the turn of the century. The Woot Stout has been one of their signature beers. It’s brewed with pecans, wheat and rye in addition to the barley and a quarter of it is aged in bourbon barrels for extra depth and breadth of flavor. The trick of aging a part of a beer in wood isn’t new — Rodenbach has used it for their regular product for decades. A brewer only has to age a part of his beer in wood to get a good wood taste to the entire batch. Woot gets it right.
The Beer— Big and boozy, the 11.5% is almost normal now, but would have been revolutionary 20 years ago. Roast with dark fruit and,,. eventually… the barrel with the booze in tow. Hints of brandy as it drinks. It stays big with some dark bakers chocolate. Ellie thought the booze was too much with hot and salty bitter. Still, she respected the beer and I got to finish it.
Value —Excellent. Stone doesn’t give beer away, but their pricing is as fair as any of the big craft breweries for well above average beers.
Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
This week we’re featuring some great beers for the New Year– dark and rich treasures for a snowy evening. Below are links to the other beers in this series.
Great Beers for the New Year– rich, full, yummy for a cold winter’s night:
Jailbreak Coffee Dusk Till Dawn, Tröegs Mad Elf Grand Cru, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Boulevard Manhattan Cask Still Ale, Ommegang Game of Thrones Series: Mother of Dragons, Lickinghole Creek Carrot Cake Imperial Amber Ale, Colbitzer Heide-Brauerei Schwarz,
Next week we return to the US to highlight some small breweries — the Davids in this Goliath movement– where we’ve just savored our time there. There’s all within a few hours drive if you live in the Mid Atlantic. We’ve found these in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night. Look for it later this year
We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests. Not all our notes, though. The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same. (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”) All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter. Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys. At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”
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