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Oatmeal Stout
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Black is Back! A Taste of Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout...
By Belly Buddy Mark Stevens
At a Glance:
Beer: Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout Pros: Smooth body with complex flavor of coffee and cocoa. Cons: Limited distribution area. The Bottom Line: This is an excellent stout and a great cool evening sipping beer. It's a touch sharper and bigger than I like in the style, but delicious nonetheless. Recommended: Yes.
I'm a meat and potatoes man. At least I am tonight since roast beef is what's on my plate, so I think I'd like a bold beer to go with the meal. Lots of good choices in the beer fridge right now, but I think I hear the Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout calling out to me the loudest of all. I haven't had this beer in at least three years, and I've been looking forward to a good opportunity to sample it and see if it is as tasty as I remember.
What I Expect in an Oatmeal Stout While most people are familiar with the dry, roasty flavor of Guinness -- the classic Irish style stout -- fewer know about the wonderful stout styles brewed in England, especially my personal favorite, the classic silky smooth body of a sweet flavored oatmeal stout.
Although it has a roast barley element to it, oatmeal stout doesn't usually taste overwhelmingly roasted. It's also not strongly bitter, nor does it have the sharp edge of some of the finer Irish dry stouts (like Guinness). It's less cloying and more balanced than typical sweet English stouts (like Mackeson), and the classic examples are brewed to a lower density than most American craft-brewed stouts -- that isn't true of Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout though, it clocks in at 13 Plato (1052).
Basically, "smooth" is the one key to a great oatmeal stout. Now, let's pop the top of this bottle of Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout and see how it stacks up against the masterpieces of the old country.
A Glass of Midnight Velvet... Right glass? Why a typical pint glass, of course. Pop the cap, pour down the side for a sec then tilt up to pour down the center, and ahhh....a perfect glass of stout!
Appearance: Black as midnight with just a flash of bright ruby red at the edges of the glass. The beer pours with almost no head and what little it had is out of there faster than my office mate Bret dashing out of happy hour just before the check shows up (the scum bag).
A glass of Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout doesn't pack the visual wallop of a Guinness poured on nitrogen tap, but it is still a lovely glass of beer in my mind since its not unlike many of the other oatmeal stouts I've sampled, many of which have light carbonation and fleeting heads. For the style, this is a good looking brew.
Aroma: Big roast aroma, almost like the huge aroma you smell in the mall as you walk past the little coffee boutiques. It's soft with a bit of cocoa to it. Very nice if its a harbinger of things to come. As the beer warms, the chocolate becomes more pronounced. Breckenridge does use chocolate malt in this beer, which is probably contributing to the big cocoa scent.
Flavor: Wow! Lots of roast barley in the flavor of this one, complete with all the coffee and cocoa flavors you expect to find a beer made with roasted unmalted barley. It's a bigger and drier flavor than I find in most oatmeal stouts, but its very good. The beer starts out bitter-sweet on the tongue, and the sweetness hangs there nicely right up until the bittering hops make their presence known with a lingering bitterness in the back of the mouth.
This is a very smooth beer, but still not as silky as the best examples on the market (I regard Youngs Oatmeal Stout as the masterpiece of this class). I love the balance on this brew and the way it just moves effortlessly between sweet and bitter flavors. This is really a delicious glass of beer!
Verdict: I'm impressed. I love good oatmeal stouts, and this is definitely among the better renditions of the style that you'll find in today's craft beer market. If this beer comes up short on the rating end in any way, it's just because it's a little harsher and bigger and not as soft and smooth as I expect from a true world class example. Make no mistake though, a four-star beer is an excellent brew in my book, and this is an eminently drinkable, solid, well-crafted stout. I'd be glad to have another...and in fact, I think I will.
About Breckenridge: Breckenridge Brewing Company started as a brewpub opened by local skiier Richard Squires back in 1990. Squires continued to grow the operation, keeping his eye on distributing his beers regionally. The bottled beers that are distributed throughout Colorado and neighboring states are produced in Denver where Breckenridge operates a microbrewery across the street from Coors Field. The brewery has a web site where you can find more info.
At a Glance:
