Saint Arnold's Winter Stout

Saint Arnold's Winter Stout is the most interesting of their seasonals, and for now the only regularly offered stout in Texas.

Pours an inky black. Not fully opaque, with red highlights and a nice medium-tan head that sticks. Great roasted grain smell with lesser hints of coffee and molasses.

Slightly more complex taste, especially as it warms. The roasted grain is still the most obvious. The coffee isn't present in the taste, which is much more vinous than it smells. Slight smoke flavor, nothing approaching a rauchbier but it's there. Almost as vinous as a porter, and as it warms it gets more and more so because the grainy taste lessens and the vinous and molasses tastes are heightened.

I prefer heavier stouts, but this one is very good. I'd love to see them make it a year-round offering, and if they up the body a bit I bet they'd be able to compete against some of the bigger stouts that sell well year-round.