Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout

Medium viscosity, mostly opaque and midnight brown in color with a thin tan splotch for the head and a creamy tan wrung around the English pint glass as we go. Dark chocolate cocoa powder traditionally leads the aroma, along with a slab of confectionary chocolate, caramel, Rolos on skewers over a propane flame and slightly burnt brown sugar oatmeal. Flavor holds few surprises and little deviation from the standard sweet stout formula. Plastic roastiness spreads out, projecting a gas station mocha cappuccino flavor. Slightly burnt cinnamon toast. Melted semi-sweet chocolate morsels on a cookie sheet, scraped off with a spatula and digesting the burnt, crisp and transformed chocolate degenerate. Waxy chocolate chews define the palate with active carbonation and effervescence that hangs around a couple seconds too long. Astringent, syrupy and lactic-souring nodes in the finish. Thanks to tpkenned for the bottle.

Dark brown with a tan head. Unsweetened bakers chocolate, coffee and some berry/cherry in the nose. Roasty, sweet with cocoa and a nice hop bite towards the finish, more slightly bitter coffe ground flavors in the follow. A bit of a mineraly aftertaste. Simple and easy drinking. Thank you to Santa FooFaa!

Dark brown, some ruby highlights, some tan head. Nose was creamy oats, sweet, and some roasty notes. Flavor was same, very creamy and medium -thick bodied. Good roastiness, finished with a light crispy sweetness, rather clean feeling. Silky. Solid.

Courtesy of Secret Santa. <P> Aroma is mild chocolate, but it has some depth. Deep black. Pours nice, but the head fades too soon. Flavor is pretty big. Some tobacco in the fore followed by bitter baker’s chocolate and medium roastiness throughout. Never gets around to being sweet really. Definitely more in the Foreign Stout side of a Sweet.

On tap at Firkin’s, Libertyville, IL. Blacked hued stout having a long lasting tan head with good lacing. No discernable carbonation. Slight sweet roasted malt aroma. Medium bodied with starts with a smooth light sweet malt and chocolate flavor. Finishes dry with light lingering bitterness. Rather thin textured but flavorful. This is a nice oatmeal stout.

Bottle. Pours black with a real nice creamy lt. brown head. Very consistent lacing on the glass. My nose is a bit stopped up, so aroma may be a little off. At first this smelled like a much lighter beer: citrus and malt primarily. After warming, the aroma is just sweet, like baking chocolate. Flavor along the lines of soy creamer, decaf coffee, hazelnut, brown sugar instant oatmeal. Finishes with dry oats, cheap chocolate, puff of hops. Like just about every oatmeal based beer I’ve tried, this one has a super smooth feel. There is something about that oatmeal that makes a wonderful consistency, though there is perhaps a bit more carbonation in there than I care for in a thick beer. Hmm...warms the chest a bit. Not too bad. I’m very partial to the oatmeal stouts and porters, however. Worth trying, but if you get NC beer, Highland’s Oatmeal Porter does this a bit better.

Pours a dark brown, with a thick brown head. Aroma is malty with coffee and chocolate, and flavor was nice. It finished very chocolatey, but not too bad. I enjoyed this.