Review: Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Brewers put all sorts of interesting things in beer. Would you believe coffee? It can work really well in beer, especially in stouts and porters, which used roasted and blackened malt, which has some natural coffee-like flavors.

The best such beer I've had is Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout from Terrapin in Athens, Ga. It's also known as Wake-n-Bake. They use a special blend of coffee from Athens coffee company Jittery Joe's. This beer also uses oatmeal (as do some other stouts), which gives beer a velvety texture.

I recently learned from BeerAdvocate magazine that there is almost no caffeine in coffee beers. There's just not that much coffee in them. So that's good for those who avoid the stimulant.

Part of my review notes from when I had it on tap at the Cock & Bull in January for the first time:

The smell is great. Big coffee and chocolate notes.

The taste: Wow. This totally lives up to the hype. It's creamy and sweet, but not cloying. The coffee flavors are big, but there are no tannin notes of bad coffee. I just realized that this is a stronger stout. Its strength is very well-hidden. There are no notes of alcohol or solvent flavors.

It has a super-creamy body.

This is one fantastic beer. Terrapin only brews this in the winter, but I was able to get a 2008 four-pack ($12!) from Whole Foods last week. At 8 percent alcohol, this beer can age well, so there wasn't any worry of it being past its prime. And it was just as good as it was in January at the pub.

Read more reviews of it at BeerAdvocate.