Tampa Bay Iron Rat Imperial Oatmeal Stout

Draft, Pours black with a thick brownish / nutty head. Taste is malt/caramel, a little nutty and roastiness. Leaves a thick and creamy presence on the palate. This is one of my fav. at TBBC with their wonderful IPA.

Draft. The aroma is fairly concentrated and includes muted cream, vanilla, rich chocolate and roasted malts. The body is decently thick and creamy. It feels fluffy in the mouth. Flavor is fruit, chocolate, light roasted notes and cream. Solid offering from a solid brewpub.

I’m going to go with this is the Iron Rat that I had given the alcohol content matches what was conveyed to me. Nitro tap at the brewery. The beer pours to a pitch black body that looks pretty oily with a creamy but dissipating brown head. The flavor is grainy and chocolatey with a very subtle dash of green apples. Black patent is heavy on this one. Silken creamy body with a rich but mostly clean mouthfeel. The aroma is creamy milk chocolate with a subtle nondescript hop. This is a great beer. Very well put together in all aspects.

Draught at the brewpub. Pours out a dark chocolate brown body, topped by an incredibly thick mocha colored head. Fantastic retention and some incredible sheet lacing make this one an easy 5, especially considering the style. Nose is bittersweet chocolate, molasses, oatmeal flakes, charred coffee beans, rich dark malts and some lactic hints. A lot going on here. Flavor is just as good, actually even better than the aroma. Everything is seemingly pushed up a notch. Huge waves of bittersweet chocolate and bitter charred beans fight for your tastebud’s attention, while the oatmeal and molasses are making for a sweet tag team in the background. Medium bodied, very good for the style, creamy but lacking a small amount of heft. Finish might be the best part of the beer, super lengthy, sweet and bitter, roasty and charred, then finishing off with a wave of sweetness from the oatmeal. What a great beer, their best in a while, and tied in my book with their awesome Baltic Porter as their best beer overall. Well done, TBBC.

Pours up dark opaque brown with lasting brown head and some sheet lacing. The mild to moderate aroma has notes of roasted to burnt malts, a solid dose of oatmeal that makes itself known and backed up by sweet malt and molasses goodness interleaved with some oxidation. The taste starts sweet with molasses and malt sweetness before a mix of an oatmeal twang and oxidation quickly take over. The oxidation note may just be an over abundance of oatmeal. Not sure. It does hint (to me) at oxidation. Midway into the finish and deep into the after taste it gets roasty malts and burnt malts setting the plate for rich dark chocolate. The burnt malts seem to grow long after the beer has vanished into the gullet.