Dark Harbor Oyster Stout
Atwood Farm Brewery

Poured from 16oz can into a dimpled mug.

Appearance: rich, dark brown hue that's nearly black. Head is a thin layer of creamy tan foam atop; quite attractive.

Smell: malty with a quite a bit of roast as well as some toast and caramel. A nice aroma, if not super complex.

Taste: roasty malt with a little bit of a nutty character and a finishing bitterness. It's not bad, although I don't get a particularly oystery feel here.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a decent carbonation and creaminess.

Overall: a perfectly reasonable stout, but it doesn't really distinguish itself (on my palate, at least).

 

Bottle aged 3 months from release, sweet maple overtones. Certainly briney. Decent but overpriced.

 

I like the brewery's name for this: "black ale with bivalves." Color is a dark amber brown with a decent creamy, almost nitro-looking foam in the narrow-waisted glass. Quite light bodied. Very interesting nose of roast malt with something indefinable.

Flavor at first is a little off-putting. It's very dry yet not even slightly burnt like the usual black stouts. Very grainy with a unique flavor which is apparently from brewing with the whole oysters, shell and innards both. You'd have to call it "savory," or "mineral and brine" as the brewers have it. Can you taste calcium? I guess so. From the 500 ml bottle purchased at Community Co-op in Bellingham.

750mL bottle with a sticker that seems to have a date on it (050316) on the bottle cap. This came as part of a box of Whatcom County goodness courtesy of beertunes. The label art momentarily threw me for a loop, as I initially thought it was of very weirdly colored waterfalls running from mountains into some oyster beds, but gazing at it earnestly for a moment revealed it's a heron or crane gobbling up some undersea goodies. First beer I’ve had from Atwood, about whom I’ve heard little. They are located in the “border town” of Blaine, WA.

Poured into a River City snifter, this briefly had a couple inches worth of a bubbly tan head that quickly subsided, leaving a thin foam collar. The beer itself was the color of utter hopelessness, even when held up to light. Kinda reminded me of what a pour of a stout looks like when poured from a growler a day after being first opened.

Roasty in the nose. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think I can detect a bit of a briny note as well.

The taste is of smooth, roasted malts, containing elements of cocoa and coffee, but there’s an undercurrent of briny, oyster-ish (I’m not exactly a connoisseur of oysters, so again, this could be the power of suggestion) flavor, plus a little bit of a mineral water tanginess. The last reviewer of this mentioned a twang that reminded him of a saison, but I’m not getting that at all, just a little spritz of mineral water. As it warms, the brininess comes out of it’s shell (bad pun, I know…) a little more, and sticks around a little for the finish, along with light roasted malt notes.

The body is somewhere between medium and full, with a lightly creamy mouthfeel.

Only my second Oyster Stout (Porterhouse’s, from Eire, was my first), and like the first, I find it to be a fairly subtle variant of the stout. It’s an eminently drinkable non-boozy stout, however, and I’d happily drink it again. This beer is proof that a stout doesn’t have to be a booze bomb to have character. Atwood Ales are now very much on my radar. Thanks, beertunes!

Midnight black pour with a truly blooming head that sticks around for a few minutes before receding into a lasting ring. I agree with the previous reviewer that the initial twang from this brew is almost more mineral in character than briny. There is a very nice and mellow roastiness, and a slight chocolate underpinning , but what makes this beer more interesting is a saison-like farmhouse twang that seems to exhibit itself in every Atwood beer I've sampled. As the first reviewer noted, this seems light in flavor for a stout, but as you sip it, the flavor builds, and the oysters become more noticeable, in particular. Today, at the Bellingham farmers' market, I learned (from an owner) that this stout is not only brewed with the shell, but also the oysters, in their entirety, are tossed into the brew kettle, as well.

I'm a fan of the entire Atwood Ales lineup, but Dark Harbor, in particular, really knocked my socks off.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours pitch black, opaque in the glass, with a one finger light brown head with great retention and lacing; a bit fizzy on the pour, but stable in the glass. Aroma of mild dark toasted malt, chocolate and slight vanilla; a bit minerally rather than briny. Flavor is mild dark toasted malt with a bit of char, milk chocolate with the malt flavor building a bit into a quite nice dark malt and chocolate finish with light suggestions of sea brine. Mild lingering malt char. Medium bodied with light creaminess, good mouth feel, almost suggesting a light oatmeal stout. A nicely made light stout. The flavor is a bit underwhelming at first, but builds into a very satisfying oyster stout finish with good lingering flavors. Well balanced. The oyster shell may give this a bit of smoothness and the oyster component is light and well integrated. I normally drink big and ba stouts and often lower ABV stouts seem thin to me, but this one, while clearly a 5 % stout, is full flavored with the interesting additions of notes from the oysters. Nicely done. My second enjoyable beer from this small brewery.