Beer of the Weekend #121: Cream Stout
One day, I knew it would happen.
Yesterday, at the BevMo! on Beach (I’ve been buying my BotW beer on Thursdays lately, so the beer has a whole day of preparation chilling), I couldn’t decide which beer to buy. I walked into the store undecided, having done no prior research this week, but remembered two beers I’d listed on a “to try” list: Eel River Organic Porter and Samuel Adams Cream Stout.
I stood in the domestic craft brew aisle, deliberating. Organic Porter, or Cream Stout. Organic Porter. Cream Stout. Organic Porter. Cream Stout… I went back and forth, grabbing a sixer of each and making my way to the register, only to turn back and rethink. (Buying beer is no longer an easy task.) Eventually, I chose Organic Porter. As oppose to Cream Stout, which you can basically get anywhere, Organic Porter is a California brew, and unlikely available beyond the state border; I decided to sample it while I still had the chance.
I drove home, put the sixer in the fridge, and forgot about it until after dinner. Having done no research, I didn’t know what to expect from Organic Porter, so I searched the internet and read reviews on BeerAdvocate. As I scrolled down the beer’s BA profile, I noticed a review written by someone who had my exact same Herky the Hawk user photo. “Cool,” I thought. “Another Hawkeye beer nut.” Then I looked at the user name.
“What a minute. That’s ME!”
I already sampled and reviewed Organic Porter — last month! February 9, to be exact.
Like I said, I always knew that, someday, I would accidentally buy an already reviewed beer to review. At 120 beers and counting, the degree of that risk is starting to run high, and yesterday my unpreparedness led me to make the stupid decision I’ve been dreading. (To my credit, though, I remembered sampling an Eel River beer, but wrongly thought it was their Organic Amber Ale.)
Needless to say, I was dismayed and embarrassed. How could I have been so careless? But, the problem was an easy, and pleasing, fix: buy more beer. Of course, I’m not going to waste Organic Porter. I decided to drink it has an after dinner dessert next week.
So, without further ado, the beer this weekend is Samuel Adams Cream Stout, brewed by The Boston Beer Company of Boston, Massachusetts.
Serving type: Six 12-ounce bottles. The label features a notch corresponding to the “best by” date: July 2010.
Appearance: Poured an almost opaque black; a little light got through. Two fingers of thick, tan head developed and dissipated slowly to leave a nice, half finger cap.
Smell: Roasted chocolate malts, coffee, and cappuccino. Also, oddly, a dust bunny smell, though it fades as the brew warms.
Taste: The chocolate from the smell has a less roasted quality; it’s much closer to milk chocolate. The coffee bitterness is faint.
Drinkability: Cream Stout is nice and smooth. At first taste it was close to epitomizing the style for me, but it lost a lot of character as it warmed.
Fun facts about Cream Stout:
-Style: BA lists it as Milk/Sweet Stout:
-Price: $8.79/sixer at the BevMo! on Beach.
-Serving temperature: 50-55ºF.
-Alcohol content: 4.9 percent ABV.
-Food pairings: BA just recommends chocolate dessert. I suppose it’s an adequate recommendation, but it seems awkward to me: dessert paired with liquid dessert. Sam Adams has a very thorough food pairings page, matching all their beers with their ideal edible accompaniments. For Cream Stout, it recommends Brie, raw oysters or clams, apple pie, chocolate anything, and espresso ice cream.
-Gravity: 13º Plato.
-Calories: 190 per 12-ounce bottle.
-A little Cream Stout history from the Sam Adams website:
-Thank you, Spartans. West Virginia and Baylor, half of my Final Four, are still alive.
The Quiet Man’s grade: B+.
Yesterday, at the BevMo! on Beach (I’ve been buying my BotW beer on Thursdays lately, so the beer has a whole day of preparation chilling), I couldn’t decide which beer to buy. I walked into the store undecided, having done no prior research this week, but remembered two beers I’d listed on a “to try” list: Eel River Organic Porter and Samuel Adams Cream Stout.
I stood in the domestic craft brew aisle, deliberating. Organic Porter, or Cream Stout. Organic Porter. Cream Stout. Organic Porter. Cream Stout… I went back and forth, grabbing a sixer of each and making my way to the register, only to turn back and rethink. (Buying beer is no longer an easy task.) Eventually, I chose Organic Porter. As oppose to Cream Stout, which you can basically get anywhere, Organic Porter is a California brew, and unlikely available beyond the state border; I decided to sample it while I still had the chance.
I drove home, put the sixer in the fridge, and forgot about it until after dinner. Having done no research, I didn’t know what to expect from Organic Porter, so I searched the internet and read reviews on BeerAdvocate. As I scrolled down the beer’s BA profile, I noticed a review written by someone who had my exact same Herky the Hawk user photo. “Cool,” I thought. “Another Hawkeye beer nut.” Then I looked at the user name.
“What a minute. That’s ME!”
I already sampled and reviewed Organic Porter — last month! February 9, to be exact.
Like I said, I always knew that, someday, I would accidentally buy an already reviewed beer to review. At 120 beers and counting, the degree of that risk is starting to run high, and yesterday my unpreparedness led me to make the stupid decision I’ve been dreading. (To my credit, though, I remembered sampling an Eel River beer, but wrongly thought it was their Organic Amber Ale.)
Needless to say, I was dismayed and embarrassed. How could I have been so careless? But, the problem was an easy, and pleasing, fix: buy more beer. Of course, I’m not going to waste Organic Porter. I decided to drink it has an after dinner dessert next week.
So, without further ado, the beer this weekend is Samuel Adams Cream Stout, brewed by The Boston Beer Company of Boston, Massachusetts.
Serving type: Six 12-ounce bottles. The label features a notch corresponding to the “best by” date: July 2010.
Appearance: Poured an almost opaque black; a little light got through. Two fingers of thick, tan head developed and dissipated slowly to leave a nice, half finger cap.
Smell: Roasted chocolate malts, coffee, and cappuccino. Also, oddly, a dust bunny smell, though it fades as the brew warms.
Taste: The chocolate from the smell has a less roasted quality; it’s much closer to milk chocolate. The coffee bitterness is faint.
Drinkability: Cream Stout is nice and smooth. At first taste it was close to epitomizing the style for me, but it lost a lot of character as it warmed.
Fun facts about Cream Stout:
-Style: BA lists it as Milk/Sweet Stout:
Milk / Sweet Stouts are basically stouts that have a larger amount of residual dextrins and unfermented sugars that give the brew more body and a sweetness that counters the roasted character. Milk Stouts are very similar to Sweet Stouts, but brewers add unfermentable sugars, usually lactose, to the brew kettle to add body and some sweetness.
-Price: $8.79/sixer at the BevMo! on Beach.
-Serving temperature: 50-55ºF.
-Alcohol content: 4.9 percent ABV.
-Food pairings: BA just recommends chocolate dessert. I suppose it’s an adequate recommendation, but it seems awkward to me: dessert paired with liquid dessert. Sam Adams has a very thorough food pairings page, matching all their beers with their ideal edible accompaniments. For Cream Stout, it recommends Brie, raw oysters or clams, apple pie, chocolate anything, and espresso ice cream.
-Gravity: 13º Plato.
-Calories: 190 per 12-ounce bottle.
-A little Cream Stout history from the Sam Adams website:
Cream Stout, first released in 1991, has one of the most devoted followings among the Samuel Adams family of beers. Critically acclaimed in beer competitions across the globe, it is often referred to as the beer world's best kept secret. The style of stout itself has its own mythology and lore dating all the way back to its birth in the 18th Century United Kingdom. Nursing mothers are said to be fortified with stout in Irish hospitals to help them produce milk while in Asia bathing a newborn in stout is thought to have a beneficial effect on the complexion.
-Thank you, Spartans. West Virginia and Baylor, half of my Final Four, are still alive.
The Quiet Man’s grade: B+.
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