Black Springs Double Stout
Hereford & Hops Restaurant & Brewpub

Translucent dark, dark amber. Light passes through, but not a lot. The head is a dying bleached tan.
Roasty nose and not much else. Not a lot period, aside from some burnt grain.
Taste is much fuller and more dynamic than the smell would inidicate. Mimics cafe au lait right away. Full of coffee, caramel and steamed milk. Perseverates on the java for a few moments. Seems like an oatmeal stout with its smooth, lightly sweet graininess. Milk chocolately later on. Trickles of plums and raisins. Ends with a minor, metallic-citric-herbal bitterness that is generally overmatched.
The body is fairly light for something that deems itself double. It barely pushes medium (think: Irish stout). Due to this lightness of body, I could drink it all night, and in to the next day.
Fantastic as a Guinness replacement, but, on the whole, some added girth would likely solidify all that I enjoy here and turn it into something truly special.
The flavor is there, the structure is not.

Much love on the hand bottled sample, Huge.

Chocolate brownie colored...nice tan head...nose is cocoa....roasted malt...just a slight hint of coffee...body is medium....moderately creamy...taste starts off with some sweeter style hershey's chocolate...then turns into more of a dark chocolate....the finish is hard to explain....more of a soy souce flavor...perhaps unripe plums or prunes...

A pretty nice stout...relatively complex as it seems to be a mix between a dry and sweet stout....not one of the best stouts I've tried nor one of the worst....enjoyable and worth drinking a pint or two of...

I was driving through Escanaba, MI and walked into this brewpub expecting mediocrity (now that brewpubs have become trendy). My usual judgement on microbreweries is to try the stout first because it is the least likely to be a disappointment. As a general rule of thumb, I find American craft brewers are good at matching or beating the Brits at their own game, but cannot remotely compete with creating German style beers.

I generally hold Bell's Double Cream Stout as the best I have been able to buy in Michigan and usually use it as a reference point to compare other stouts to. This Black Springs Double Stout was my first beer of the night, so my judgement was at its peak. This stout poured very black and had an excellent head that remained at 1/8 of an inch for over 30 minutes. A nice lace hung to the side of the glass and it had a rich, but not too syrupy mouthfeel. Great roasted coffee notes similar to the Bell's stouts, but not quite as heavy in overall texture, so it is what we might call in this forum as a great "session beer." I normally don't have much reason to go to Escanaba, MI other than as a crash pad enroute for my annual trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin's annual airshow, but I now feel I will make an excuse to make the 8 hour drive up there just to savor this beer on tap once more. This is one of the best balanced stouts I've had.

Pours a very dark shade of ruby. Damn near black. Slight tan head. Aroma of cocoa, roasted malt and java. Pretty nice. Taste is bittersweet baby. Baker's chocolate and roasted malt, with just a tinge of sweet malt. And a nice bitter hop snap to boot. Gotta love a stout that incorporates Centennial hops into the mix.

From the small sampling of this I had on tap, I would be apt to buy more of this beer during a later visit.