Brü It Yourself | Tasty Is The Groat Oatmeal Stout

Author: Will Lovell

In the time I’ve been into craft beer and brewing, a few styles have pretty much maintained to top spot in terms of universal popularity. In no way am I criticizing this reality, in fact I’m a huge fan of styles like West Coast IPA and Hazy IPA and Red IPA and Pilsner. Curiously though, these weren’t the styles that pulled me in.

Back in the early 2000s, prior to my foray into homebrewing, while visiting Fredericksburg, Texas, I made a stop at the aptly named Fredericksburg Brewery. Of the various options they had on tap, I ended up going with an Oatmeal Stout, and that was the day I fell in love with this classic style, namely the melding of chocolate and coffee notes that were complimented by a silky-smooth mouthfeel. Delicious!

Unfortunately, Oatmeal Stout can be pretty tough to find these days, and even those breweries that do take a chance with this style tend to have them around for quite a while. Of course, as a homebrewer, if I’m pining for an Oatmeal Stout, I can just make my own, which is exactly what I did recently. This batch served a dual-purpose, as in addition to being the style selected for The Brü Club’s AvgBrü series, it was also the first beer ever brewed, so I was excited to tap that bit of nostalgia.

| Making Tasty Is The Groat Oatmeal Stout |

Given this was an AvgBrü beer, the recipe was mostly influenced by the parameters set by members of The Brü Club.

Tasty Is The Groat Oatmeal Stout

A day prior to brewing, I weighed out and milled the grain before preparing a starter of Imperial Yeast A10 Darkness.

The following day, after collecting the full volume of water, adjusting it to my desired profile, then heating it up, I incorporated the grist and set the controller to maintain by desired mash temperature.

While the mash was resting, I weighed out the kettle hop additions.

Once the 60 minute mash was complete, I removed the grains then boiled the wort, adding hops at the times listed in the recipe.

Following the 60 minute boil, I rapidly chilled the wort then took a refractometer reading showing it was at my target 1.052 OG.

After transferring the chilled wort to a sanitized fermenter, I pitched the yeast starter.

The beer was left to ferment at 66˚F/19˚C for a week, at which point activity was absent, so I took a hydrometer measurement showing it was at the expected FG.

At this point, I cold crashed the beer to 36°F/2°C and left it for a few days before transferring it to a sanitized keg. The filled keg was placed on gas in my keezer and left to condition for a week before it was ready drink!

| IMPRESSIONS |

For most of brewing history, barley has reigned supreme as the go-to base grain, while oats have been viewed as more of a backup grain, by which I mean it was often used there wasn’t enough barley harvested in a season. However, by the late 1800s, British brewers began leaning into the use of oats under the belief it made beer more nutritious. While that wasn’t quite right, what oats did do was lends silky mouthfeel and creamy body, which many consumers found to be rather delightful.

In the many years I’ve been brewing my own beer, I’ve made a smattering of different styles using a wide variety of ingredients, and one style that holds a special place in my heart is Oatmeal Stout, as it was the very first beer I ever brewed. As is the case with a handful other classic styles, typically the only way I’m able to drink Oatmeal Stout is when I brew it myself, which isn’t a complaint at all – I find this style to be rather easy to brew and quite forgiving considering the use of roasted grains.

I was very pleased with how Tasty Is The Groat turned out and had no qualms sending it in to be reviewed by Marshall and his band of dorky buddies for an episode of The Brülosophy Podcast. Not only was I stoked to hear that they were all fans of my beer, but everyone else I served it to seemed to enjoy it just as much. While I may not have designed this recipe exactly like this on my own, I felt the AvgBrü parameter challenged be to think outside of the box a bit, and I’m grateful for that because I couldn’t have been happier with this beer. I’ll definitely be brewing it again in the future!

If you have thoughts about this recipe or experience making something similar, please feel free to share in the comments section below!

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