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For once there's a specific reason why I've chosen to publish this recipe. It's because I've just been learning about this beer and am planning to write about it. Several times.

I've a feeling this is the original oat Stout. Maclay's certainly took out a patent on it. And went to great lengths to advertise it calling it "the beverage of the century". Very modest claim, that. When other breweries started brewing beers called "Oat Malt Stout" they got very upset. Not quite as bad as Bass, but then again, who was as litigious as Bass?

I suspect that's why there where plenty of beers called Oatmeal Stout. Getting around Maclay's patent. I'm now going to repeat something I've said several times before. The Lodon Oatmeakl Stouts I've seen in the brewing records only contained token amounts of oats. 1% or even less of the grist. And, as these beers were parti-gyled with other Porters and Stouts, effectively all of them were Oatmeal Stouts. Whitbread's London Stout and Oatmeal Stout were identical, save for the label. And oats made up lass than 0.5% of the grist.

It was a very long-running product for Maclay. The first advert for it I've found is from1897 and they were still brewing it in 1994. A very impressive run.

You'll see that there are some, well, unusual ingredients in this beer. Linseed oil and liquorice. Can't be bad for you. It says on the label "strongly recommended for invalids". Though ity does also say "brewed from oatmalt and hops" which isn't quite the whole truth. There's a whole load of other shit in there as well.





I'll be returning to this later, so for now that's me done and it's Kristen's turn . . . . . .














Kristen’s Version:

Notes: Here we go boys and girls. A definite oddity. This bastard pours like its crude oil. The oat malt is not a typo and, no, you can’t get the same character from plain oats. Find them. This one, really can’t be done by you extract guys, sorry. Its got so much oat malt in it, there is nothing that can compare. Minimash, sure. The linseed was very odd to me. I’ve seen it in a few beers but nothing like this. Very little of it was used too. The licorice, well I like a nice licorice flavor in my stouts. Not the crappy Allsorts-type but proper licorice. The hops were pretty old and there was a good deal of them. The Cluster seem to lend a harshness that can get through all the thickness. Nothing really escapes this beer, especially light. This is one you all should do if able.


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