Nomad Stout

Cavalry Nomad Stout
1 12 oz bottle, $1.55, 4.5% ABV

Purchased at Liquor Depot, New Britain

nomadOh look, there it is again – the infamous Cavalry carbonation problem. As a sort of post mortem of this now defunct (May 2014) brewery, I’ve skimmed through a bunch of there Cavalry reviews at the usual sites.

The fun part of that is seeing how all over the place the reviews are – none more than for this, the Nomad Stout. It becomes clear that Cavalry’s standards of quality control were not up to snuff, as it seemed like if the bottles didn’t explode with carbonation, the flavors were all over the place too.

But, as you know, I”m just one guy with one palate. And I review what I drink. So while it’s easy to make fun of bad beers from RIP’d breweries, that’s not the case with this one. I very much enjoyed my Nomad experiences.

That’s right, plural. I had it at the source. I loved it there and got a growler of it. Later, I bought the bottle you see above.

Cavalry says:

This dry Irish stout is smooth and flavorful with excellent malt and chocolate undertones. 4.5% Alc. By Vol. 50 IBU’s.

Nomad is a good friend that led a team in eastern Baghdad with a base at the Al Rustimayah war college in southeastern Baghdad. He was the only officer in our group to be wounded and this came from an Iraqi ceiling fan. We promptly shot the fan and transported the wounded soldier to the aid station where he received three stitches.

4802763288_f83ecbd2deIs it weird that a guy named Nomad was probably responsible for the death of actual nomads in Iraq? Yeah, probably. War is hell. Stupid war is stupid hell.

This stout was very, very dry. The malts were a tad overdone, but aside from that, this was a great Irish stout made in Connecticut. There was a time – a crazy, crazy time indeed – back in 2010/11 when we only had a few breweries. Cavalry was the new kid to the old heads at Hooker and Olde Burnside and Cottrell. NEBCO was just finding their footing, pumping out the old-style Sea Hag that tasted like an actual sea hag.

And back then, the Nomad Stout was in the upper echelon of Connecticut beers. Which is just crazy when you think about it, 3 years and 25 new breweries later… Cavalry is as dead as that ceiling fan in the “cute” little story on the label and there are probably 50 beers brewed here now that are as good or better than the Nomad Stout.

We live in fortunate times. Except for the whole never-ending war crap.

Overall Rating: B
Rating vs. Similar style: B

Cavalry is closed. Stop looking for a website.
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