BEER REVIEW
Onsetter American Stout, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, Columbus Details: Available at Giant Eagle and local carryouts; $10.99 for a six-pack of 12-ounce cans; 6.5% alcohol by volume
Notes: Pours like a standard stout; dark with a light-colored head Thoughts: Of course, everyone loves their local contrarian, that curmudgeon who they can count on to go against conventional wisdom. OK, well, actually nobody likes that person. He’s the wayward uncle at the family reunion at whom you smile and nod through gritted teeth while he goes on about the latest conspiracy theory, or he’s the person who somehow ended up with the beer review column at the newspaper. So, here I am checking in with the “You can drink stout any time of the year” hot take. Because you can. And I did the other afternoon, on a patio when it was 90 degrees outside. And it’s enjoyable to watch the 4% summer shandy drinkers recoil in horror at a glass of dark midnight on a 90-degree day.
Enter Wolf’s Ridge Onsetter American stout. Described as “dry and bitter with notes of French roast coffee, baker’s chocolate and classic American hops,” I would say it’s a not-too-heavy, straight-up stout. There is a tinge of bitterness up front (it checks in at 40 on the International Bitterness Units scale), but I would not say this is an overly bitter beer.
Nor would I say it’s a coffee-forward stout, or a chocolate-heavy stout. I would call it nicely balanced.
And because it’s not a molasses-thick, 11% concoction — despite their dark color, not all stouts are a heavy lift — it’s not a problem to drink amid what’s left of the summer heat.
So, fellow contrarians, when everyone else in your party is grabbing a lager or seltzer, wade on in there with an Onsetter (or any other favorite), because stouts are drinkable at any time of year, not just in the chill of fall or cold of winter.
So there.
— Patrick Holbrook, Dispatch beer reviewer pholbrook@gannett.com