Grand Rapids Hazlenut Oatmeal Stout

12oz Bottle. Foamer. Not a gusher, just a voluminous production of coarse, perforated chocolate mousse, settling above a largely black pour. Nose produces a light salt of jamon, cherry wood, almond paste, and coffee residue. Restrained with some errant sourness. Hello, alternative fauna and flora. Jolly Pumpkinseque. In the mouth, it shows no differently. A piquant yuzu crispness to a charred, barrel edge and burnt roast touch. Still not detracting. A good lactic edge. Brettanomyces walks up and shakes my hand. Man, when these other bugs get into a beer like this, it really chews through the residual sugars and leaves them a little flat. Even what I imagined was a slightly sugary stout like this has lost a lot of that edge, which makes it certainly more palatable, but losing nuance and depth. Salty and full of straight, bland citric acid. This head builds like a freakin’ ice cream float. The stout characters that are there are nice and actually work well. If this was a blind tasting, I would swear to god this was a Jolly Pumpkin beer, if not Madrugada Obscura. Metallic and grassy back blade. Every now and then I have a hallucination that someone is pouring hot Nutella down the back of my throat. Alcohol actually presents. Backs out on Bretty apple skins. In the end, a unique accidental infection that worked out okay. I think I appreciate this more than what the base beer may have been. Thanks again to my main man Sean!