I absolutely love trying beer from breweries that don't normally distribute to California. Getting the beer is always tricky, but there's something kind of cool about trying something that most people in your area don't get to try. A few days ago, I got just that chance when I tried Oakshire Brewing's Overcast Espresso Stout, courtesy of my friend, Beau, who just moved to Portland. Thanks for a great trade, Beau!
I'm not normally a coffee drinker, but I absolutely love coffee flavors in stouts. Some of my favorite beers out there (Victory at Sea, Kentucky Breakfast Stout and Speedway Stout to name a few) have huge coffee notes that really make the beer. So I was pretty excited when Beau told me he was including a locally brewed espresso stout as part of our trade. Let's see how it turned out.
Overcast Espresso Stout pours a black color with a very thin mocha colored head. I was looking for a lot of coffee in the nose, but only found a bit alongside big notes of roasted malt and chocolate and some faint hints of red berries. Not exactly what I was expecting, but still pretty intriguing.
I started to get the coffee a bit more in this once I took a sip. The taste leads off with some nice notes of roasted malt and day-old coffee. These flavors were followed by some dark chocolate, licorice and hints of smoke and charred malt. Pretty good stuff! My one complaint about this beer has to be the thin mouthfeel. Even though the ABV is low, I was hoping the mouthfeel would be helped by the oats used in the brewing process. Despite the oats, the beer still felt way thin and the mouthfeel just didn't do the flavors in the beer justice. Still, a solid beer and one I'm really glad to have gotten the chance to try.
Final Grade: B+
Top 100 Beers Tasted: 34
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