“Make Your Best” Oatmeal Stout and Weizenbock

Going beyond the simple question of “what” and instead exploring the “why” will help you understand how to design and brew better beers.

Oatmeal Stout

When you want to make a stout but you know the people drinking it aren’t roast heads (you know, like hopheads, but for roast), it’s oatmeal stout time. It’s not bone dry, intensely roasty, saccharine-sweet, or overly alcoholic—but it’s still clearly a stout. Style: Oatmeal stout is, in my estimation, the easiest-drinking stout there is because it doesn’t overwhelm the palate or the liver while it still provides a lot of great secondary flavors. You find mild roast aromas and flavors, full grainy flavor, some good balancing bitterness, and a full, but not thick, mouthfeel. The roast in oatmeal stout is much more like a latte than a cup of black coffee, and the difference is nicely noticeable. Ingredients: In this recipe, the oats are added almost exclusively for mouthfeel. The “oat-like” flavors will come from the rest of the grist. Start with Maris Otter and 10L Munich malt: That will provide a bready baseline from which to work up. To that add equal amounts of flaked oats, Victory malt, and pale chocolate malt. The oats will add some smoothness, the Victory will add what people think the oats should taste like, and the pale chocolate will prevent the roastiness from getting too aggressive while ensuring that it’s still evident. To round things out, add some English 45L crystal, for that nice nutty flavor and a touch of sweetness, and some Midnight Wheat so this beer will be black as night without having to pay the roasty piper by using roasted barley or black patent.

Go low on IBUS in this recipe to prevent people from mistaking “bitter” for “roasty,” so 25 IBUS of anything at the top of the boil will suffice, and then some Fuggles with 10 minutes left in the boil: I love what that “taste of English dirt in the morning” flavor does for this beer.

Finally, select London Ale III (Wyeast 1318) for fermentation because it finishes a little sweet and it’s highly consistent, which can’t be said for some of the Esb-style strains. You’ll get just a bit of berry aroma out of it, but otherwise it’s clean and simple. Process: Since we want body, I recommend mashing this beer a little warmer than usual, but even that might be overkill: the grist really should do most of the heavy lifting here.

A simple and steady 66°F (19°C) fermentation is good enough. Attenuation isn’t a concern, so there’s no need to drive the fermentation with a whip, and this yeast isn’t a prolific diacetyl producer (though a diacetyl rest at the end of fermentation is a good habit to get into).

Finally, carbonate a bit higher than you ordinarily would with your English-inspired ales. It will add a fuller mouthfeel, and since we went a little easier on the IBUS, we can accommodate a little bit more “bite” from the carbonic acid.

This is a year-round beer that is as nice to drink on a warm summer evening on the porch as it is on a cold winter night by the fire.