Instead, Oregonians encountered most of their early micro on tap, so when they visited grocery stores, their taste buds enlivened by Widmer, McMenamin's, and BridgePort, they had only strange-looking imported beers to entice them. The Mexican beers did not count, but beyond that, we had little to sample. One of the most exotic I bought--though admittedly we're getting off into the weeds here--was Russkoye, a Kiev-made beer from the Soviet Union. I was shocked by this discovery, a Ukrainian beer just short months (years?) after Chernobyl. A terrible beer, but one of the crown jewels of my bottle collection.
One of the beers readily available was Sheaf Stout, a beer originally

And yet I did love it. I loved it enough that on Saturday night, when I saw a bottle in a grocery store in Manzanita, I paused every so briefly before buying it. (Sally and I made an impromptu trip to the coast over the weekend, and perhaps I was in an adventuresome mood.) The trouble with beers one discovered in the 80s and loved is that, twenty years on, they almost always disappoint. Our palates change and our memories lie and we end up feeling wistful, like we'd lost something valuable from our youth.
The story has a happy ending, though. Even as we drove back to our hotel room, I began ratcheting down my expectations. By the time I took my first sip, I expected something like a fizzy lager with a dash of caramel coloring. Of course, it wasn't. It was as intense as I recalled, if different. I remembered it as huge and malty, whereas it's actually a sharp dry stout (5.7%). It's got a luxurious bitter, equal parts tar and tobacco and a touch of sourness. I suspected that it was brewed with a lager yeast--it finishes out very dryly and there's not a hint of ester. Jackson says no, or did, a decade ago. The intensity is such that each mouthful pulls your attention back, but not so much that you don't almost immediately want another pull. It's not exactly a session stout, but it's in the ballpark. Two pints and you wouldn't suffer in the morning.
I will put it on my short list for satisfying stouts. After twenty years, it's back in the rotation.