North Coast Brewing's Old No. 38 Stout

It's been a while since I've gotten to sit down and do a review. Honestly I haven't been trying out nearly as much lately. Since we started brewing our own beers, I haven't spent a lot on commercial beer. Partially it's because when you have 5 gallons of beer sitting around, it's a little unnecessary to go out and buy more. But it's also a price factor... brewing beer can be expensive. I think I dropped about $70 on ingredients last time I was at the home brew store. When you figure you can normally get about 52 bottles out of a 5 gallon batch, that means it's about $1.35 a beer, or $8.10 for a 6-pack. That's pretty consistent with the price of a commercial beer purchase, and in some cases even more expensive. So at some point, I just gotta say... if you want to see more reviews and less about home brewing on here, send me some money so I can afford beer!

Since the latest batch to go into bottles was a stout, I've got them on my mind. Stouts are one of my favorite styles now, which I still find amusing considering how much I didn't like the first one I tried. Anyway, I tend to go for a new stout before almost any other style unless there's something particular I'm in the mood for. Recently I had the opportunity to try Old No. 38 Stout from North Coast Brewing. North Coast is located in Fort Bragg, CA.

The Old No. 38 Stout is a Dublin Dry stout, and weighs in at 5.5% ABV. It poured a very dark brown, nearly black, with a hint of dark red around the edges. There was a light brown head, about a half finger thick, that dissipated to just a dusting rather quickly. The remains left a tiny bit of lacing, but not much to speak of.

The aroma was a strong roasty, almost coffee-like scent. The smell actually disappeared kind of quickly, until you get just a bit of a smokey smell. This was unusual in my experience, as normally the only smell that would not last throughout the beer is the initial hop aroma.

The taste was good, neither sweet nor bitter. Instead it had a strong roasted taste, with a bit of a sharp bready flavor. There was a touch of burnt flavor as well, but it was a nice addition and not unwelcome. The flavor isn't terribly strong, but definitely wasn't creamy. It was definitely an interesting flavor though, despite the fact that there wasn't a lot to it, simply because most beers tend either towards being sweet, bitter, or balanced between the two, but this one didn't really have any apparent swing towards sweet or bitter. It's hard to describe, but I think of it as a lack of either sweetness or bitterness, rather than a balance of the two. I know that sounds like it could be a bad thing, but it really wasn't.

The body of the beer was towards the heavy side, but it also had a substantial amount of sharp tingling carbonation. The level of carbonation did work nicely for me though. As the style implies, the beer had a dry quality to it. As I've learned from brewing myself, this is supposedly the result of a more complete level of fermentation of the sugars in the beer than normal. In other words, there aren't a lot of sugars left in the beer that haven't been converted into alcohol.

Overall it was a very good brew, and easy to get down. The flavor wasn't overwhelmingly strong, but I also didn't find it watery or weak. It's a flavor that sits well on the tongue. I could see this one becoming a regular for me when I'm looking for a stout, provided that it's available. I'm looking forward to trying more from this brewery at some point, as the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout is supposed to be excellent.

- Adam