Sodbuster Stout
Olde Main Brewing Co. & Restaurant

 

This beer pours pitch black, with a fairly thick, frothy head, that lasts for a while. The nose is minimal. The taste is fairly earthy. It is rich and delicious. Their best beer, in my opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

Sampled tonight on 3/2/14. Bottle chilled down to 36 degrees F in my beer cooler and poured into a brandy snifter glass.

Pours a very dark brown/almost black in color with a very small thin beige head. Some lacing was seen with each sip. The aroma has a lot going on with roasted malts, coffee, toffee and chocolate. The taste is about the same with a hint of vanilla mixed in there as well. A slight bitter 'black coffee' taste for the finish. Not a bad stout.

 

A - deep reddish brown with some tan head

S - tons of complexity, chocolate, vanilla, coffee, cream. Very impressive

T - a bit mild compared to the smell. Chocolate sweetness and coffee bitterness

M - very thin

O - I was disappointed with the flavor after the outstanding aroma, expect more flavor from a stout

I literally finally made an account on Beer Advocate to review Olde Main. Maybe since I'm from the "big cities" on the West and East coasts and have frequented some of the bigger players in the micro brew game and am 'jaded'.

Anyways this is the third and last beer I have had or will ever have from Olde Main. I picked up a bottle from Hy-Vee and poured into a frosted mug. The beer tasted flat immediately. There was signs of carbonation and a bit of a head so it's not as if it had a leaky cap or anything, but it literally tasted like water with beer flavoring. The aroma is very weak to match the taste and it lingers in your mouth in a bad way. Perhaps a lot of Olde Main's customers are "farm folk" who are more accustomed to super watered down lagers and American Pale Ales so the watered down taste of this beer isn't too far into uncharted territory, but someone who wants thick stouts and porters will likely be underwhelmed by this one.

As people have mentioned, I don't know what the operations at Olde Main are like, but the flavors in these beers are very amateur to say the least. When I was 19 I bought a "Beer Machine" home brew kit and made terrible beer with it and this is almost exactly what that beer tastes like.

 

 

 

 

A: Deep viscous black with a small tan head that doesn't stick around long and recedes to a ring around the glass
S: Smells of chocolate, coffee and a bit of roast malt
T: light chocolate and watered down coffee on the palate with a bit of sweetness. roast malt on the swallow with an aftertaste that dissipates quickly
M: kind of thin for a stout with adequate carbonation
O: not bad but not great.

 

 

Poured from an inch or so from above the glass gives you a pretty decent sized light brown head above a clear dark brown to black colored beer.

Decent aroma of roasted malts with some chocolate and some coffee notes coming through, a very nice aroma on this beer.

The taste is rich roasted almost bordering on burnt malt taste, the coffee and chocolate of the aroma are present but not as dominate as they are in the nose. Still a decent tasting beer but not as impressive as the aroma would have led me to believe.

A full bodied stout that leaves a dry light aftertaste with a slight chocolate lacing to it.

Bottle in the build-a-six pack section at Hy-Vee

This is one of the darkest beers I've ever had, with a surprisingly light-colored head and low carbonation. The aroma is heavily malted with notes of cocoa and coffee . The taste has the same flavors with the cocoa very prominent making for a robust brew. One small problem, it seemed to get sour as I got towards the bottom of the glass; from either some of the ingredients or from warming up, I'm not sure. The body is god and thick, spot on for a stout. It finishes with a slight twinge. I'm not sure what's up with the sour finish. I recently has a bad bottle of the scotch ale that was so sour I dumped it, but the brewery was kind enough to replace it. This one I can finish, I'm just not sure if it's the beer or I just got a bad bottle...again.