Clarkson Integrator

Issue date: 11/19/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Aaron Fetterman Each beer here represents a unique flavor experience. The oatmeal and chocholate stouts are both brewed with oats to create a nice smooth feel and a slightly sweetened taste. The Kelpie beer, as its name says, is made of seaweed. Lastly, the Peg Leg beer tastes more smooth and has more of a roasted malt flavor.

If you like the stouts featured last week but are looking for more of an extreme experience, there are three stouts that I think are good for you. I tried an Oatmeal Stout, a Sweet Chocolate Stout, an Imperial Stout, and a recreation of a Scottish Seaweed Ale, while not technically a stout, fits in with these others quite nicely.

The oatmeal and chocolate stouts are both creations of Young & Co.'s Brewery in London. The Oatmeal Stout was brewed with oats to give it a nice, smooth feel and a slightly sweetened taste. Coming in at 5.4 percent alcohol by volume, the stout is a good one, but I'd rather have Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

This one clocks in at 5.2 percent alcohol by volume, and has a wonderful smooth and chocolate taste. The additional sugars counter the generally roasted malt character that gives stouts their signature taste, but not enough to eliminate the taste entirely.

I'll include the Peg Leg Russian Imperial Stout, brewed by Clipper City Brewery in Maryland. Right from the beginning, I could smell the malts and the alcohol. It tastes more smooth and with a more roasted malt flavor, the Peg Leg ends up being a very good stout. But a good counterexample of what one can be, rather than sweet and chocolatey, it's malty, and one can really taste the alcohol.

To wrap things up, I'm going to include a non-stout, but I think it is of the same family. When I saw a Kelpie Seaweed Ale at Beers of the World in Rochester, I knew that I had to try it simply for the sake that it was made of seaweed. Upon further inspection, I learned that this Scottish Ale was brewed as the ancient Scottish brewed their ales, with their barley grown in seaweed beds. It gives it a distinctive, and hard to define, taste. It had a bitterness that resembled a good dark chocolate, but also some of the smooth and deep roasted malt flavors. Since it clocked in at 4.4 percent alcohol by volume, it is only fitting that it comes in a 500 mL bottle.

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