Pic(k) of the Week: Old Stock Ale 2001...in 2019

Like a fine port, Old Stock Ale is intended to be laid down. With an original gravity of over 1.100 and a generous hopping rate, Old Stock Ale is well-designed to round out and mellow with age. It’s brewed with classic Maris Otter malt and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings hops, all imported from England.

• 11.4% alcohol [by volume]
• 34 [?] IBUs [International Bittering Units]

What it was

This Old Stock Ale, brewed by North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, California —in 2001— was still going strong in 2019. (The brewery, founded in 1988, is itself still going strong.)

I drank it —purloining it from my vintage beer-bottle stash— in Atlanta Georgia, on 22 October 2019, while I was watching the broadcast of Game 1 of the 2019 World Series in Houston, Texas

How it tasted

After aging in the bottle for 18 years, it had a touch —if only a light touch— of carbonation remaining. In looks, dark with mahogany/red highlights; in texture, silky smooth; and in taste, like chocolate-covered plums, the predominant story-line among several sub-plots.

Why I drank it

Succinctly: for jubilation. In 1933, a baseball team from Washington D.C. last played in the World Series. Eighty-six years later, the city's drought of Fall Classics surceased, it is happening again: the Washington Nationals, champions of the National League, versus the Houston Astros of the American League.

Fort Bragg might have little in common with Washington, D.C. But on that night, the glorious liquid produced within its borders seemed right. With an Old Stock Ale in hand, I was smiling.

And, maybe, somewhere Walter "Big Train" Johnson was too. Go, Nats!

-----more-----

• Prior reviews of other beers: here.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays, occasionally, as is the case today, with a good fermentable as the subject.
• Photo 43 of 52, for year 2019. See it on Flickr: here.
• Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.
  • Lens: Olympus M.45mm F1.8
  • Settings: 45 mm | 1/40 | ISO 200 | f/9.0
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


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