Review: Ipswich Oatmeal Stout

Ipswich Oatmeal Stout
7.0% ABV

Mercury Brewing Company, Ipswich, MA

22 oz btl

Served in St. Bernardus chalice glass

Bottled on 9/28/12
Reviewed on 3/15/13

This stout pours a dark inky color with a bubbly toasty beige head that keeps good form.  Quite good lacing.

Smell has chocolate, oatmeal, coffee, malt, slight hops, slight caramel, mild milk, mild dark fruit.

Taste has bitter dark chocolate, coffee, malt, oatmeal, some hops, hints of raisin and perhaps cherry, mild alcohol.

Mouthfeel is smooth yet with some good bitter bite on the tongue.  Creaminess and even some dryness on the palate.

Overall, this is a quite solid tasting oatmeal stout with a nice bitter dark chocolate flavor and good notes of coffee and oatmeal.  Fairly complex with a touch of alcohol and some good smoothness and creaminess on the palate that's somewhat balanced by the bitterness and some dryness.  The shelf life on this is almost 6 months, but it's still quite good.  A nice discovery at a great price. 

My score: 95

Thanksgiving Dinner: What About Beer?

Okay, we're up to the first stop in the holiday season with Thanksgiving.  It's customary to have some wine at the table, but what about beer? 

Following conventional beer-food pairing wisdom, quadrupels, tripels, and dubbels would be the best way to go, and who could argue with having a Trappistes Rochefort 10, Unibroue La Fin du Monde, or Boulevard The Sixth Glass with any meal? If you've managed to save a few pumpkins ales for this occasion (good luck trying to find them now, which is even crazy to contemplate--what if you couldn't get a pumpkin pie right now?), they also make a good logical pairing.  Basically, as Garrett Oliver and Randy Mosher and others say, you'll want to match intensity with intensity.  Not overly spicy or bitter beers that are along the lines of something earthy and have a somewhat yeasty profile should work well considering traditional Thanksgiving fare; the aforementioned Belgian style beers and pumpkin ales might do the trick, along with pilsners and hefeweizens/wheat beers.  An IPA might not be the best choice, as hop bitterness will overwhelm the food flavor.

The beast is cooked.  Now choose a beer!

 An interesting thought I've been having is pairing stout with the turkey meal.  Say what?  I'm thinking that a bold imperial stout might be best saved for dessert, but something like an oatmeal stout, which can be rich and creamy but not as bold and spicy and full of dark chocolate and coffee flavors as an imperial.  Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout seems like a good one to try—creamy, mellow, smooth, yet quite flavorful.  I'm thinking, how could this not go with turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and the like?  A 550-ml (about 18.6 oz) bottle is relatively inexpensive and even enough to share with someone, depending upon how you view such a thing.

Anyway, remember that I'm an amateur at this, so you should do what you want to for beverages.  If you've got a beer that you truly want to crack open when you sit down for dinner Thursday, by all means go for it.  Or mix it up with something completely unexpected.  Hopefully, you can sit down with friends and family and share a meal (if not your beer) and give thanks, which is the most important thing.

Review: Hoppin' Frog B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Hoppin' Frog B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout
ABV: 9.4%

22 oz bottle

Served in Dogfish Head Signature Glass
Reviewed on 8/17/12

This stout pours a thick inky black with a cocoa-colored head that dissipates quickly.  Mild carbonation present with decent lacing.

Smell reveals dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, chili pepper, oatmeal, smokiness, toastiness.  It tastes of cocoa, hops, slight malt, dark chocolate, oatmeal, slight chili pepper, smoky, toasty, caramel.

Mouthfeel is smooth, well-balanced, good strands of bitterness and dryness coming through.  Creamy with bold, definite flavors.

This is a bold, tasty Russian imperial stout with a solid profile of flavors.  Nice touches of bitterness and dryness.  I picked a bottle of this up at Jungle Jim's in Fairfield, Ohio, while visiting friends in the area in June (and Hoppin' Frog is based in Akron).  Unfortunately, along with the rest of the Hoppin' Frog line, it's not available in my state. 

Score: 95