Evanston Avenue Brewery - Old 31 Oatmeal Stout

Old 31 Oatmeal Stout

ABV: unknown
IBU: mid range
SRM / coloring: dark brown to amber

Hello again everyone!  Well it's been a while since I've written a review, the holidays were essentially a long series of good events, great events, and bad events so I've been a little occupied.  But not much can hold me back from the beer, so lets get to it.

First up is a great new beer from a brewery you've probably never heard of, and honestly might never come across.  Evanston Avenue Brewery is the home brewing operation of a friend of mine from work.  I just got hooked up with a new job (great event) and for christmas she was kind enough to give me a sample of her Old 31 Oatmeal Stout.

First off I was simply impressed by the bottling of the beer, tall brown glass with an actual bottle cap on it; pretty nice for a home brewery.  With our basic home brewing kit we have plastic screw top bottles, so this is stamped and approved official.

Now this beer is titled an oatmeal stout and certainly has the strong heavy flavor characteristic of stouts, but the real kicker here is the coffee.  From beginning to end you get a big ol hit of coffee, smell and taste, which if you're into coffee (like me) then you'll love it.  It has a medium to heavier body, and comes off just a bit sweet on the end which is unique for both stouts and coffee flavored beers.  With a little more work, Old 31 Oatmeal Stout could be a real heavy hitter.

Flat 12 - Joe Brahama Brown Coffee Ale

Joe Brahama

ABV: 5.1%

IBU: 28.5

SRM / Coloring: Deep Brown

Honestly they should call this Coffee Bitch Slap Brown Ale. RR and I ran down to the Flat 12 brewery on October 28th for the Bloody Blonde tapping party, which I might add is a fantastic blonde variation (see RR's post for more), but it isn't quite my cup of tea. In the tasting room I asked the guy behind the bar for something darker, to which he said,

"Well we got our standard porter and our milk stout. And then there's our Brahama, but that's pretty intense."

Either he was just giving me fair warning or he was a true salesman trying to peak my interest, at any rate I had to go for it. In the beer world, this would be a middleweight title contender, light in body but with a strong southpaw jab that can put you on your ass. In both smell and taste you get an intense coffee punch to the senses, but it isn't a thick smooth taste like with a porter, it's more of a sharp clean taste almost like an iced coffee. It looks like a porter, it smells and tastes like a porter, but it has the body of a bock or a lager. It's a crisp and cool beer with that strong coffee bite on the front, but instead of the bitter end with a normal cup of coffee you get a smooth sweet after taste which they attribute to infused lactose. Not a beer for the faint of heart or taste, you gotta know you want a strong and flavorful drink.