Mineside Stout
Canmore Brewing Company

On tap at Canmore Brewing in Canmore, Alberta.

This one pours a very dark brown color, with a small fizzy head, and not much lacing.

This smells like roasted malt, and a touch of smoke.

This is very, very thin tasting, with very little of the malty goodness you’d expect from the style. There are no overt flaws sticking out, but there’s also nothing overtly sticking out, good or bad, in general. I’d want some more creamy malty character in the end.

This is thin, watery, and bland, but with an easy enough drinkability.

There’s not a ton of good points to highlight in this one.

 

 

 

 

 

473ml can - not sure that comparing any part of a beer's attributes to coal is a really good idea.

This beer pours a fairly solid black, with minor red cola basal edges, and two chubby fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and fizzy brown head, which leaves a bit of random island group lace in spots around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of bittersweet cocoa powder, roasted caramel malt, cafe-au-lait, a mixed dried berry fruitiness, and very tame earthy, weedy, and leafy noble hops. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, a touch of free-range ashiness, day-old coffee, black licorice, muddled dark orchard fruity notes, medium nutty chocolate, a hint of soured milk, and more understated earthy, musty, and dead floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly weak in its bored-seeming frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and mostly smooth, with a soft airy creaminess worming its way in once the ambient temperature goes up a smidge. It finishes off-dry, the malt, cocoa, fruit, and roasted esters making a day out of it.

Overall, this is a genial enough version of the style, the low-key hops keeping it squarely in (an admittedly robust) Old World territory. Easy to drink, with just the right amount of char to keep the sweetness at bay. And the coal, don't forget about the coal.