The Commodore: American Stout
Storming out of San Diego, California with a pipe-toking, sword-brandishing skeleton pirate on the label shivers me timbers with the overt aroma and flavors of roasted nuts.Upon pouring you will see that, depending on technique, you can get a pretty good head on top if you want, or you can leave just a sliver. A lot of stouts have a big coffee flavor, and while there is a hint there, it isn't overboard or too in your face.
The Commodore weighs in at 6.5%, which is a little disappointing, because I wanted to title this article Commodore 6.4 (I'm a nerd, and I'm proud of it!). It isn't real heavy, but heavy enough that after the second one the belly, at least mine, starts to wonder how much more I'm gonna weigh it down with.
The head is creamy and smooth.
Unless you upend the bottle into a pint glass I think it would be hard to raise the head to an unacceptable level. If you stop the pour short with a fair amount of head building, while leaving that little bit in the bottle like you can with some wheat beers, pouring it in a watching the color swirl, you can drip the remainder through, making the density of the head more visible.The app, Untapped, lists the flavor profiles as Roasty, Dry, Dark, and Smooth. I would agree with all of them. I added Nutty to my checkin, and listed the beer at 4.25 out of 5. I like stouts, and sometimes I am into coffee stouts, sometimes milk stouts, sometimes cream stouts, but I'm digging the Commodore because it doesn't really seem to fit into any of those categories. New beer is a good thing.
Add Ballast Point to your list of wants if you like stouts. They have several other types, but this is the first one I have tried. Apparently one of their most popular is called Sculpin. For some reason, maybe I'm just being finicky, I can't get the idea of fish flavored beer out of my head. Shiver me timbers.