GUEST POST: NATHAN JONES - KANSAN GONE TEXAN, GONE KANSAN ONCE AGAIN - REVIEWS LOST COAST'S 8 BALL STOUT

holy midwestern tap handles, batman! i got a load of reviews to report from this recent trip my smokin' hot wife and i made to kansas city. after tossing back some cold ones with mike redmond, i hit the tap handles and sixers with nathan and emily jones, kelly jackson, and thom and tracy fox. then i capped off the week's bottle by back porching, home brewing, and chihuahua sunbathing alongside sir jason scott. it was a grand few days, full of many beers, little sleep, and bookoos of trees taller than one story buildings. (texans know what i mean). 

while i recover from the travels, i'll lean on the words of the good and lovely nathan jones to review one of the beers we collected but did not sip together. lost coast's 8 ball stout (5.9% ABV) received a collected review of B+ on beeradvocate, while the ratebeer crowd (of which i'm an active member) awarded it 97/100. that's a drastic difference in populace opinion, making this stout a controversial little number, giving me one more reason to regret not sharing this brew with my friend. 

honestly, i've steered away from the lost coast line after tasting their alleycat amber, downtown brown, and great white ???????. none of these beers did anything for me except spit remorse into my pocketbook. however, beer is an odd concoction, and breweries can boil up some strange worts from time to time. also, nathan jones is a good man with a trusted palate. you'd like him. and he has great tastes in film. send him some love back on his first beerclub review when you get the chance.

(the following letter was edited by the publisher. y'all ain't gots to know all we gots to say. damn.)

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Kevin -

I drank the Eight Ball Stout made by Lost Coast Brewery out of Eureka, CA.  I will say that I am now very disappointed that we did not get to share it.  It was not like a traditional stout.  The first taste was not the 'stout' coffee flavor that you normally get from a beer like that.  As I went through it, it just got better.  The beer was extremely smooth and flavorful.  I will say that if someone is on the fence about liking a stout, this is the one to drink to get on the wagon about loving a stout.  It was a stout with training wheels.  Anyways, I recommend you try this one and tell me what you think. 

- Nathan Jones

BE T'ANKFUL FOR THE PINTS OF THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

CONFESSION: i'm not a big guinness fan. well, i'm not a fan of their regular irish stout, particularly the kind that sells on tap at every dedgum bar and grill from here to timbuktu. i don't like the stuff. guinness on tap tastes like a good stout that got watered down. i am, however, quite a big fan of the guinness extra stout, the one that sells without the little nitrogen widget, but that's a different post. 

so the story goes that tonight i'm waltzing around the liquor store with two smokin' black women - my wife and our dear friend leida, in from saint louis for latonya's birfday - and all the white dudes in the store are craning their necks and saying, "damn! what kinda karma is that dude pulling to be with them?" and leida's buying lambic. and latonya's buying sweet tea flavored vodka. and i found sixers of new belgium's mighty arrow on for $5 so i nearly pee myself. 

then i found a bottle of this guinness 250th anniversary stout. poured in a small taster glass, i'm seeing a stout that is phenomenally darker in appearance than the regular guinness. with carbonation decreased (by the lack of a widget), the blackness sits heavy in the glass, allowing a small purplish cola-tinted ring of light at the bottom and near the top of the glass. the aroma tells of deeply roasted malts with small hints of coffee. nothing sweet rears in the aroma - no anise or caramel, no cocoa or even raisin: just small coffee notes and a heavy malt burn. smells more like bread than beverage. the aroma does not rightly prepare the palate for the depth of flavor. again, nothing spectacular or specific stands out in the palate or the mouthfeel, just the roast of dark barley and slightly smokey grains. that's all. this is a good stout if you like the flavor of ashes. honestly, after developing a passion for the russian imperial stout, what with all her complexities of warring sweets and stringencies, this guinness 250th anniversary pales in comparison to the new possibilities i know of stouts. 

overall verdict: guinness 250, while way better than guinness draught, doesn't hold a candle to guinness extra stout or, especially, american craft stouts. the typical argument goes that, since the irish invented stouts, guinness is the consummate stout. well, fine then. drink all the guinness you want, me lad. but, as for the me and my palate, i will bask in the dark and sinister russky imperial stouts of america

and also dreamy black women.