[BW] Beer Blog

I’m going to deviate from my normal format and instead do a few quick reviews of some awesome brews I had last weekend.

Casked Deschutes Fresh Hopped Mirror Pond Pale Ale
This cask-conditioned ale I had at Deschutes’ new Public House in the Pearl District of Portland. As a huge fan of cask-conditioned ales, this didn’t disappoint. Much, much smoother than regular Mirror Pond with a way higher floral aroma. I could have drank this all night if I had the opportunity. A colleague of mine also enjoyed it, which was surprising since he doesn’t really like regular Mirror Pond.

Block 15 Chocolate Porter
Block 15 is a brewery and brew pub in Corvallis, OR that I haven’t even remotely written enough about. Block 15 has quickly become one of my favorite breweries period and definitely my favorite brew pub. Their Chocolate Porter was exactly what it claims to be. Very similar to Rogue’s chocolate stout offering, yet just a tad thinner in body. Definitely grab a pint while it’s still available.

Block 15 Ridgeback Red
Ridgeback Red is one of Block 15’s standard offerings and has claimed quite a bit of success as a beer almost everybody will enjoy. This red takes the standard west coast twist on reds in that it leans much more towards hoppy than malty. I had the opportunity to enjoy this from a pony keg that Josh from The Oregon Wine Blog brought to a recent show our rock band played. If you want to play it safe visiting Block 15 for your first time, then perhaps consider ordering a pint of Ridgeback Red.

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Brewery: Stone Brewing
Style: Oatmeal Stout
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: A- (Community)
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.83 (97th percentile)
Serving: 22oz Bottle

Stone by and large is one of my favorite breweries. Their Russian Imperial Stout is in a league of its own, I look forward to Old Guardian every year, and I can even get Arrogant Bastard on tap. To say I was excited to see that they brewed a chocolate stout would be an understatement. Long time readers know that I’m a sucker for chocolate stouts.

“Our Anniversary Ale this year stems from 2 pilot beers that were brewed by members of Team Stone. The first was Jeremy Moynier’s incredibly delicious Oatmeal Stout, and the second was Jake Ratzke’s amazing homebrewed Imperial Stout that had authentic Oaxacan chocolate added to the boil. We loved both beers so much that we decided to combine the recipes to make this year’s Anniversary offering: Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.”

I have high hopes for this one considering both that its’ from Stone and it’s price tag, so let’s see what we have:

Appearance: Jet black with the thinnest lace of brown head I have ever poured. No light gets through this one.

Smell: Surprisingly, I don’t smell any chocolate. Standard oatmeal stout aromas come though as well as some extra alcohol, which has a hint of bourbon behind it. If anything, coffee comes through as a dominant smell.

Taste: Whoa! Not a fan of this. It tastes like a coffee stout spiked with vodka. Maybe I just got a bad bottle, but this his horrible. There’s no hint of chocolate whatsoever and it’s not even that great of an attempt at an oatmeal stout. I’ll give it a shot again if I can find a bottle (to verify if mine was just bad or not), but my advice would be to pick up Rogue’s or Bison’s chocolate stouts before this one.

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