Southern Tier Oat

Name: Blackwater Series Oat
Style: Imperial stout
ABV: 11.0%
Serving: 650ml bottle
Where: Pub Italia, Ottawa
Brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company
Location: Lakewood, NY, USA
Weblink: Southern Tier beers

Just to round out Friday night, before I get too far behind, here's the other mighty Imperial stout on offer at Pub Italia from Southern Tier. Just for research purposes, you understand. This beer forms an interesting counterpoint to the Young's Double Chocolate stout below.

The beer pours very dark, pretty much jet black with only hints of brown, and fairly treacly, with only a very thin deep brown head. The flavour palette is dominated by strident burnt toast and bootstrap molasses tastes, with a slightly spicy and caramel toffee backnote. These morph gradually into a very similar tobacco and dark chocolate flavours to that of the Chokolat stout from the same brewery. In contrast to their Chokolat, however, you can definitely taste much of the 11% alcohol that resides here.Their shared parentage is very clearly shown here. The aftertaste is predominantly a similarly spicy and toasty flavour to those of the main palette, but that linger for a very long time indeed.