Spooner's Stout

by Joel Perry
(Beer Delegate, MD, USA)

Spooners Stout: one for everyday consumption

In the middle of White Marsh, MD sits the Avenue. Basically, the Avenue is a glorified strip mall complete with local eateries and a movie theater. You wouldn't expect to find a brew pub in an area like this, but that's exactly where you'll find the Red Brick Station; home to the White Marsh Brewing Company. This local restaurant/pub has an excellent menu of traditional Irish fare as well as contemporary American.

On a frigid Sunday afternoon, I decided to hunker down with a pint of their Spooner's Stout and a mound of Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. The food was delicious and my Stout was a perfect match.

At Red Brick, master brewer Mike McDonald utilizes Ringwood yeast which some people either love or hate. A byproduct of using this finicky strand of English yeast is that it yields a butterscotch taste to what ever you're brewing. In this case, the butterscotch shows up only slightly in taste and more in the aroma. It's joined by a hint of roasted coffee and caramel.

Once it's finished cascading into a nice mocha colored head this stout is completely black in color. Only around the very edges do you see a hint of cola coloring. Its looks are deceiving though. In your mouth it's actually quite thin. I was fully expecting it to have more body but there wasn't much. Now, I'm not saying it was light on flavor, because it wasn't; just thin in your mouth. Their website describes it as silky but that's just marketing.

Upon initial taste there is a heavy coffee flavor but it mellows and eventually there is a hint of Graham cracker and vanilla. This stout isn't nearly as bitter as a Guinness and because of this I think will appeal to a wider audience.

To be honest, it went really well with my food and I think that's half the goal here. You can't buy beer from White Marsh Brewing Company out side of The Red Brick Station, so I'd guess that they work carefully to ensure that neither the food nor the beer upset one another.

That's okay with me. Together they work very well. I would definitely recommend stopping in and ordering up a pint or two. Spooners Stout is an excellent example of an everyday pint of stout.