The Beer Nut - A Kurt nod

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https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cIiDNmonu...meal_stout.jpgAn oatmeal stout from Rascals today, to which they've added chocolate as well as coffee from local roastery Imbibe. They've grandiosely named it The Breakfast of Champions though I had it in the evening and am far from a champion.

It looks great in the glass: a shiny black with a full and lasting head. I could have sat and admired it for hours were it not for the enticing aroma: lots of freshly brewed coffee, turning increasingly chocolatey the closer it got to my nose. 6.1% ABV helps boost the richness, but I'm sure the oatmeal, coffee and chocolate all played their part. It's properly sumptuous, smooth and creamy like a latte. Not that it's all sweetness and milk: there's a punchy roasted bitterness, and even a slight jangle of green hops. A certain grainy dryness is present too, which I'm guessing is the oats, but could be just my imagination trying to complete the set.

Either way, this is the complete picture and I don't know what else one could want from the spec. Stout purists might complain that the coffee is overdone, but if you come at it as a novelty beer it's incredibly well balanced and pleasingly dry by modern standards of fancy stout.

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