Leapbeer Review #109 St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout

Tonight I sit down to a nice dark glass of yum. The St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout is a lovely representation of this style of beer. It comes in a perfect serving size (bottle filled my tulip glass no more no less). And its a 5.0% ABV making it a welcome ‘normal’ test beer. I wasn’t sure what made oatmeal stouts different from other stouts, so I went to good ol internets for the information. Wikipedia has quite the ream of info on their ‘Stout‘ page, but I like how beeradvocate puts it quite concisely.

“These are generally medium to full bodied stouts that have an unreal smoothness to them from the addition of oats to the mash. The oats not only add a lot of smoothness to the mouth feel but give a touch of sweetness that is unlike any other type of stout. Both levels of roasted flavor and hop character will vary.”

As they will tell you on their website, St-Ambroise uses 40% dark malts and roasted barley in this beer creating a deep black colour. You could say it is so black it could bend time (Mohr Stories ref). It smells of toffee and chocolate, and has a cafe au lait coloured foamy head on top. This has a lovely bitter afternote to accent the sweetness. You get all the roasted malts, but they are almost shocked with the finish. Instead of a lingering sweet your palate is refreshed. It feels weird to say this, however this is a fairly light stout. In flavour I mean. The way its balanced it doesn’t demand sipping. I don’t suggest slugging down your glass as quickly as you can. I’m just saying that if you wanted to quaff it down this goes down really easy. It doesn’t have the standard ‘syruppy mouthfeel’ you get from most stouts.

All in all this is a great beer. I look forward to another.

#109 is St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout.

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