Oatmeal Stout

ABV 4.2-5.9% · IBU 25-40 · SRM 22-40 · Serve 50-55F · Glass Nonik pint · Oats 5-20% of the grain

Identify

Dark brown to black, usually opaque, sometimes showing a red edge against a light. The head is thick and creamy and runs tan to light brown, and it holds better than the colour would lead you to expect. The smell is coffee, chocolate and a mild grain sweetness. This is where the style declares itself. It feels thicker than it looks, and it coats the tongue on the way down. Roasted coffee and chocolate arrive with a real malt sweetness behind them. The finish sits between medium sweet and medium dry, and it leaves a slick smooth film rather than a dry scrub.

Place

England and Scotland, from the mid 1890s. It nearly died out, then came back in 1980.

Cause

Oats carry gums called beta glucans, which are soluble fibres. They are the same things that make a bowl of porridge thick. In beer they dissolve into the liquid and make it slightly more viscous, which your tongue reads as body. The thickening effect is real and measurable in a laboratory.

Confused with

Irish Stout, which is thinner, drier and sharper. Sweet or Milk Stout, which is genuinely sweeter because lactose was added. English Porter, which is browner and softer on the roast. American Stout, which puts hops on top of the roast.

Numbers

An Oatmeal Stout is an ordinary strength stout with oats added to the grain bill, usually somewhere between five and twenty percent of it. The oats do almost nothing to the flavour. They change how the beer feels, and that is the entire point of the style. It is a sensation, and it is the clearest one in this module.

Will you like it, Order and Try

Coffee with milk or oat milk in it. That is very close to what this beer is doing, both in flavour and in the way it sits on your tongue. Dark chocolate, or chocolate desserts with cream involved. Drinks with body to them. If a thin drink feels like it is missing something, this style is built for you. Anything on a nitrogen tap.

Pair, Judge, Myth and Remember

Delicate white fish, green salads and fresh citrus. The roast rolls over them and the body smothers what is left. Raw oysters are the interesting near miss: an Irish Stout is the classic match and this one is too thick to leave a shellfish room. It feels thicker than the strength on the label suggests, and it leaves a slick film.