David Brockington's Tasting Notebook

Wharf Rat Blackfriar Stout

The Wharf Rat Camden Yards
206 W Pratt Street
Baltimore, Maryland
(410) 244-8900

Initial Impressions:

This is a beer that I sampled many months ago, only now to translate my notes into a review. When I visited the Wharf Rat brewpub across the street from Camden Yards, I was inspired by their wonderful selection of cask conditioned ales. I took full notes on the Special Bitter, the review of which I posted to rec.food.drink.beer last July. This review finally completes my consideration of the Wharf Rat beers, although there is an outside chance that I will be briefly visiting Baltimore again next month.

For those unfamiliar with the Wharf Rat, it is an English- style pub located across the street from the beautiful Camden Yards ballpark. Wharf Rat appropriately concentrates on English ales, and they do a splendid job. Many brewpubs and microbreweries on the east coast have a proclivity for the Ringwood yeast, and for lesser brewers this can create an egregious amount of diacetyl in the finished beer. Wharf Rat has a reputation for not only taming Ringwood, but for creating some fine ales with it. The Special Bitter did have noticeable amounts of diacetyl in the flavor and aroma, but it did not prevent the Bitter from being a very good beer.

The Blackfriar Stout was poured under an appropriate CO2/Nitrogen blend. The resulting pint was black opaque, with a full head that seemed to linger forever.

Nose:

The bouquet of the stout featured strong coffee and roasted barley notes. The nose was quite impressive on this beer, which some malty undertones supporting the coffee and roast.

Flavor:

The first flavor encountered was a solid roasty note. The middle was somewhat thin, unexpectedly, but this soon enough slid into a coffeeish and bitter hoppy finish. Neither flavor nor aroma hops were detected, and the pint finished dry.

Final Analysis:

A good stout, and certainly a beer that I would order again given the opportunity. Overall, the Wharf Rat is a fine brewpub making some very nice, subtle British and Irish ales. As I have said before, Baltimore is a lucky beer town with both the Wharf Rat and Baltimore Brewing Company. Furthermore, with Victory Brewing Company now just up the street (by west coast standards) the beer situation only gets stronger.

Rating: ***1/2

(5-star scale)

Next Up:

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
Humboldt Red Nectar
Sierra Nevada IPA
Copyright 1996 by David Brockington, all rights reserved; Seattle, USA
Comments? Fire off some email: dbrock@u.washington.edu
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