The Norseman Review

I went through a phase the last year where I moved away from brewing more experimental and/or unique beers, and tried to focus more on brewing more traditional beers. One beer that I had never brewed was an oatmeal stout. I love a good oatmeal stout, they are creamy and smooth, but have a wonderful balance of caramel and roast. On Halloween I brewed the Norseman, my version of an oatmeal stout. In a lot of ways the Norseman turned out great, it has a perfect mouthfeel, and is very enjoyable and quite flavorful A lot of my friends loved the beer and I found myself going through the keg quickly. However, it missed the mark on two key areas of an oatmeal stout, it wasn't dark enough and lacked roastiness. So...it's more of a dark oatmeal brown ale?...oatmeal brown porter?...basically something other than a stout. It's the beauty of homebrewing in a way, and also the nice thing about the return to the basics for me. By having a fairly simple recipe, I can easily determine that the Norseman misses the mark on a couple things that are fairly fixable, mainly upping the roasted barley and either adding some black malt or debittered black malt. On the other hand, it was highly enjoyable as it was, so I know that I either have a really good beer as is, or make a few changes here or there and I have something closer to the stout I'm aiming for. A win/win basically. So onto the Norseman review:
The Norseman pours light chocolate brown with a lot of reddish hues, held up to the light the red really comes through, as well as a nice finger of lacy off white head. Aromas of chocolate and toffee with some faint roasty notes. Smooth at first, with a nice softness that finishes with a slight bitterness. Flavors at first of malt and biscuit, followed by some nice chocolate notes and just a little bit of roast. A lingering chocolate sweetness and a hint of the chalky-roastiness I was aiming for...but just a hint. The finish is soft with a coating of chocolate and malt and slight bitterness.

More to come...
Salud!
Bearded Brewer