Beer - #275 - Liberty - Darkest Days Oatmeal Stout

Home again home again.... to a Liberty Darkest Days Oatmeal Stout. One has to finish what's in the beer fridge and this is the last of the last year beers.

Brewed by Liberty Brewing Co in the Style of a  Stout and that all a happening in Kumeu, in Auckland, New Zealand.

This is 500ml bottle, of a 6% ABV beer, making it 2.4 standard drinks. Something like 180 calories a serve, which I think, and I'm still researching, is 350ml. at 45 IBU things this is nearer the top end of the range for this type of beer.

It doesn't have to always be about hops. With the surging popularity of overtly hoppy beer, there's an extreme demand for the aromatic little flowers. The history of beer has never seen such overwhelming pressure on the international hop supply. With entire crops unavailable to the smaller brewery, these are the Darkest Days for the hard-core hop heads. But this isn't about hops. This is about a delicious oatmeal stout, darker and more ominous that your hopped up fears. Challenge your palate with this, decidedly, devilish drop.

Enjoy full bodied bitter chocolate and espresso notes, with a rich texture, at cellar temperature with your friends and family.

Quite hoppy aroma, grassy, I wasn't expecting that, but it gives over to a more chocolate note.

A big heady pour, and I was expecting less than a pint, I got a bit more, with the mocha coloured head overflowing the glass, meaning a quick dive in. No harm except to the coaster that is not going to make it to the end of the glass.

I'm finding this a little bitter, and lacking in strong chocolate notes. This also didn't pout "thick". The head has subsided a bit to a smaller more manageable height but there is no lacing to speak of.

So what do I get? I am getting chocolate notes, yes. But this is carried on an underlying and quite resonant bitterness.  Yes I know this is more indicative of stout that I'm letting on.

I was looking forward to this, and it really is my lead up to finally getting to the Epic Coffee and Fig stout that is weeping gently in the fridge. However I find myself a little miffed that this isn't cracking on and being better.

So the coffee and the bitterness should be more balanced.  For my money, and it was, this is also a bit thin and short on length, there isn't much to chew over in each mouthful, the mouthfeel is a little lacking.

I feel that I've been a bit harsh on this, but I've come to the conclusion that it is only my opinion and it was my money.  The pdubyah-o-meter is 7 though, making this the top end of average on my arbitrary scale of things that makes often no sense.

I like a goodly amount of the Liberty beers, it's not like they have a record of swing-and-a-miss brewing, I really like their C!tra for instance. I look forward to my next one, beer from Liberty that is. Or beer, in general.

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