SCHOONER’S OATMEAL STOUT – COMFORTABLY MIDDLING

You know when you read about a beer winning a gold medal at the GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL, as SCHOONER’S OATMEAL STOUT did this year, you figure you gotta give it a go. The other night I tried this prize-winning gold medal beer on tap, and I was kinda wondering what they were smokin’ in Denver earlier in the year. Sure, it was all right, but this Antioch, CA brewery (that's their tanks pictured here - awesome!) didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to deserve the prize – it tasted like something that you’d find at any one of a number of middling microbreweries the country over. I think I expected the sugars to carry this one into something really bold but sweet, the way a great Oatmeal Stout typically tastes, but it had a real flat and somewhat less-than-exciting combination of tastes, almost striking me as sort of root beer-ish at times. Then again, I rated it 6.5/10 after it was done, so something was going down right, I just can’t remember what it was. I might have to get on the BART and head out into deepest Antioch (a San Francisco/Oakland suburb in what is often called “the deep east bay") and give these guys a grilling about what’s going on. Until, then if you want to see for yourself what they’re calling the best oatmeal stout in the world in 2006, be my guest.