Syrah Tompkins
Three Magnets Brewing

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing nearly opaque black in the glass with a two finger brown head with great retention and nice lacing. Aroma of dark toasted malt, cocoa and graham crackers. Flavor is dark toasted malt, red wine, cocoa and a undefinable slight tartness that lingers into the finish with a slight hop bitterness and residual malt char. Medium bodied with light creaminess. It's odd that within two weeks I got to try two new stouts influenced by Syrah grapes (the other was Dogfish Head's Siracusa Nera, barreled in Syrah barrels). It's an odd idea and strange that it happened at the same time on two coasts. Like the latter, there are pleasant stout flavors here, leaning towards a dry stout profile, but with a vaguely fruit tartness from the wine. The impression I got was red wine, but Syrah is a white wine and I think the reason is that the light hopping and light char remind my palate of the tannins in red wine. I like this one a little better than the Siracusa Nera, but am left concluding that I'm not a fan of vinous flavors in my stouts. I'm starting to move away from tart fruit flavors in stouts as well and just have to live with the fact that I like my stouts without tart flavors. This delivers what it promises, a vinous influenced dark stout, and the stout body tastes fine, but this is style that I will probably not revisit.