David Brockington's Tasting Notebook

Howlin' Stout

Initial Impressions:

This is yet another of the beers sampled at the 1994 Herbfarm Microbrew Festival held this past June. Onalaska is a relatively small craft-brewery located in the equally small town in southern Washington. Onalaska has a population measured in the hundreds, and is located roughly 120 miles south of Seattle. It tends to be overlooked by the tourists who come through the PNW.

Onalaska's ales don't make it into the Seattle market very often, and honestly, I am not certain what markets they do make it into. My experience with their beers has been limited to the odd festival or two, and the one "brewers' night" hosted in their honor by a Seattle pub. They were notedly absent at the recently completed Northwest Ale Festival, which was held all of last week at Coopers Alehouse in Seattle.

This particular stout claimed to be cask-conditioned, but my impressions were more along the lines of an unfiltered standard ferment served out of a cask. In the glass, the beer presented a hazy deep brown hue lacking any appreciable head; both attributes are consistent with a beer that is being served out of a cask without CO2 pressure. (It need not be hazy, however; one *can* still fine a beer and claim cask conditioned status.)

Nose:

A maltiness dominates the nose, with a degree of hop spiciness lingering.

Flavor:

As with IPA, I have a firm opinion of what I ought to find in a beer claiming stouthood. Primarily, this is a requisite, noticeable amount of roasted-barley and roasted-malt flavor, with the focus being on the former. Kudos to the beer that has an "in your face" amount of roast in the profile. Unfortunately, the Onalaska Stout had no discernible roast flavor at all. This is fine for a beer calling itself Porter, as that style tends to be one of the vaguer ale classifications, but I believe that Stout ought to have some degree of definition, and Onalska's interpretation lacks that. Following the aforementioned egregious paucity of roast, I noted a light body with some maltiness evident up front, which moved into a hop bitterness, which possibly was overshadowed in the long lingering finish by a modicum of astringency.

Final Analysis:

Not a Stout. This would have made a passable (but not very good) Porter, but it clearly does not qualify as a Stout under my criteria (or those of several others far more advanced in the art of beer drinking than myself). Altogether a bland, insipid product, with the only flavor profile asserting itself being the hop bitterness, which was, quite frankly, too evident. I suspect that the blatancy of the hop bitterness was highlighted by the astringency that I noted. Finally, it was somewhat acidic (more so than it ought to have been) with a small degree of alcohol warmth. * 1/2 (out of 5)

Next Up:

Whidbey Island Stout
Portland Porter
Portland Stout
Saxer Liberator Dopplebock
Copyright 1994 by David Brockington, all rights reserved

David Brockington, Seattle, USA
bronyaur@u.washington.edu