Ballast Point Sextant Coffee Oatmeal Stout

Brewed by Ballast Point Brewing Company
Style: Dry Stout
San Diego, California USA

On tap@the new Scripps Ranch Brewery: The darkest of browns with a medium tan head. Aroma is dark roast ground coffee. Flavor starts burnt malt coffee bitter followed by maybe a hint of dark chocolate, but mostly coffee with a lightly dry and bitter finish. Light body is thin, but creamy with soft carbonation.

On-tap at O’Brien’s 3/17/08. Pours a thin looking black color with a tan head, some lace. Smells fruity to me, almost like grapes, smells of dark and just faintly sweet malt. Tastes toasty with just a hint of the sweet fruitiness that was there in the nose. Tastes sweet through the middle and very roasty toasty on the finish. To me the mouthfeel is thin but the flavor makes it seem full bodied I guess. Very dry feeling.

Very smooth on the pallette. Dark brown, roasted malts and flavor. Very easy to drink.
Earlier Rating: 5/6/2007 Total Score: 4
Very tasty, nice and smooth, the batch I had was not "to watery" but wasnt super thick either. I enjoyed this beer.

On tap @ Ballast Point (Linda Vista) - Pours a dark brown color with a small light tan head. Very light lacing. Aroma is roasted malt and light esters. Flavor is roasted malt, coffee, and light esters. A smooth, but slightly dry beer. Light to medium body. A nice beer.

Sampled May 2007; Served on Cask at Stone World Bistro & Gardens
Pours with a dark chocolate brown color and is topped by a creamy, half-finger high, brownish tan colored head that even has some cascading froth fresh from the cask. The head leaves a touch of lacing on the sides of my glass as well. The aroma has clearly been stripped of the carbonic acid that is typically in a beers nose; it is very smooth smelling, if that makes sense. Notes of chocolate, burnt prunes and somehow something like cinnamon is noticeable. This beer is very fruity smelling; the afore mentioned prunes, but also notes of raisins and a touch of musty cherry aromatics are all noticeable.

There is lots of fruit in the flavor too; prunes and raisins are the most noticeable notes. A touch of dusty chocolate is noticeable too. The beer feels very smooth as it hits the tongue, it is not quite creamy (it is too light for this, the lightness does make it really easy to quaff though). In body and mouthfeel the beer is quite light. The beer is actually served quite warm, meaning that it has been served a touch north of 60ºF (ºC). A bitter, burnt malt character couples with a hop bitterness in the finish. Overall this beer is quite dry, despite its fruity overtones. This is quite tasty.

Tasted at Ballast Point. Black with creamy off-white head. Aroma of roasted coffee, chocolate, and alcohol. Grainy chocolate taste with some coffee flavor showing through in the finish. As a side note, Cafe Calabria makes a good Mexican Mocha.

4 oz sampler from the brewery. Appears as a dark nearly opaque brown stout. This maybe be because of the small shot sized glass that allowed me to easily see light on the edges and able to call it a color of brown. Small development of a tanned colored patch head of foam was observed but dissappeared quickly. The aroma was mild with some small hint of coffee bean and dark malt being utilized. Howeve, the flavor was more apparent and displayed a strong presence of dark roasted malt and coffee. Carbonation was the only thing about this that i thought was to strong and thats my only complaint.

Draught. Pitch black body with a medium-sized creamy tanned head and lacing. Aroma consists of espresso roast, cookie dough sweetness, and light chocolate. Quite bitter and dry - chocolatey and chalky for the most part. Very high and sharp carbonation. Not bad but there isn’t a whole lot going on.
Pint at Hamilton’s in San Diego on March 25, 2007.