Big Time Old Rip Oatmeal Stout

Brewed by Big Time Brewery
Style: Sweet Stout
Seattle, Washington USA

Serve in English pint

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On tap at Big Time. Poured black with a dark brown head. Aroma was big roasted notes, coffee, and chocolate. Medium bitterness, lightly sweet, with a full finish. No carbonation, and a bitter chocolate finish.

I understand oatmeal stouts are supposed to be sweet. This is conscientiously engineered into the beer by legions of bearded brewmasters and scientists clad in their authoratative lab coats. Part of the whole style’s appeal is that brown sugary edge that leaner and meaner stouts sometimes lack. It’s a soft appeal, and I’m a sucker for it. The closest food analog I can think of is all the candy near the check-out at grocery stores. It’s not filling, it’s not satisfying, but it’s sweet and incredibly tempting, and so you throw down a dollar and walk away with equal parts sugar high and regret. But sometimes oatmeal stouts can go overboard with their sweeter sides. The Old Rip Oatmeal from Big Time Brewery is a good example of this. The aroma is dry and suppressed, belying a syrupy flow of sugars beneath. And this is where my tasting notes get very terse: “Tastes like a chocolate bar dipped in chocolate milk. Can’t taste anything else.” And it’s true. And it’s incredibly indulgent. I won’t deny the lifelong desire to actually dry dipping a chocolate bar into a chocolate milk, a more serious version of other child-like food experiments (like mixing sodas at the soda fountain with disastrous results.) But sip three and everything after are uncomfortable. It’s wave after syrupy wave of pure chocolate insanity, a deluge of delight that my flimsy carbon based sensors simply can’t handle. And I’ve got a whole bottle of the stuff to finish. At the end I’m sick with overexposure to chocolate, and my tongue feels numbed. It’s a lot of flavor, and you get your money’s worth, but the intensity is simply too much for one wayward individual expecting a nimbler, lighter sweet side to their oatmeal stout.

Draft. Blackish beer with a brownish head. Chocolate, light roast, and light oatmeal aroma. Big chocolate flavor with roastiness. Medium bodied. Dark chooclate lingers with light oatmeal.

on tap at big time brewery in seattle. fluffy pour stout with a touch of coffee and bitterness

On tap at the brewpub. Pours black with a brown head. This is an incredibly thick and syrupy beer but it is not sweet. The palate is fantastic in its thickness. It has a wonderful tongue-tingling finish. The oatmeal really smooths this beer out, giving it a full mouth flavor. It is simply wonderful.

pint @ Redbones as part of Northwest Fest. Real good aroma, Sweet, coffee, milk chocolate, soy sauce, caramel. Brownish black color, Great head and lace. Bitter sweet flavor. Medium body, creamy smooth mouthfeel, bitter finish. Very nice, a lot of flavor. Looked great, so easy to drink....

Date: September 12, 2009
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub
Appearance: black, fine brown head, drippy lace
Aroma: sweet roasted aroma, touch of caramel sweetness, light fruityness
Body: big body
Flavor: sweet roasted flavor, caramel sweetness brings out ripe fruits, dark chocolate bitterness
Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 7/10; Overall: 15/20
Rating: 3.7/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *** /4

The 2009 incarnation, on tap at Brouwer’s. While wheeling the keg into the fridge, Bill himself described this one as a "big f’in stout." I’ll reiterate, for such a small operation, and for one that might normally cater to college kids (it’s on the UW’s main drag of bars and restaurants), Bill and the folks at Big Time do a great job. This is no exception. Pours black, with a dense, burnt-cream head. Really pretty pour. Some roasty coffee overlays the sweet chocolate notes you’d expect from an oatmeal stout, and this one is velvety smooth. What I like is that it isn’t too sweet. I’ve had oatmeal stouts that were sickeningly sweet, with seemingly no balance whatsoever. This does a nice job of finding that balance. I still prefer stouts to have a greater hop presence than this does, but it’s very good. Keep it up, Bill!

Not really all that interesting but well done and drinkable. The aroma is a nice mix of coffee, oatmeal, light chocolate. Pours dark brown with a nice lasting creamy head. Flavors of initialy sweetness, chocolate, oats, light roasted malt. Silky smooth mouth feel. Nice moderate bitterness in the finish works very well with the initial sweetness.

Draught. Very low light brown head. Pitch black body. Smooth coffee choccolate aroma. Cremay coffee choccolate flavor with low carbonation, little hops bitterness and a long aftertaste.