Top of the Hill Coates Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Brewed by Top of the Hill Restaurant & Brewery
Style: Stout
Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA

Draught during my NC brew tour. Pours dark brown with a nitro induced cascade resulting in a very even head. A fair level of oats and coffee are present in the aroma with hints of rough barley. Rich milk chocolate is noted in the flavor along with a light sourness. Quite smooth brew indeed. The chocolate in the finish is almost syrupy and the oats are lost beneath the sweeter flavors. I’d definitely consider this to be a sweet stout. After a few sips, I noted some light piney notes. I could drink this regularly, but it’s certainly not the zenith of the style.

Pours deep black with medium, creamy, tan head. Aroma and taste was chocoffy, with some finishing hints of chococolate syrup. The finish was light for a stout, and lacking complexity.

Very dry stout dominated by fake-tasting chocolates. I was annoyed by the nitro, which gave the beer a fake creamy body. You can taste some potential in this one, but it doesn’t really measure up.

Draught nitro. Appeared a nice opaque black with thick, creamy brown head. Aroma was of artificial chocolate syrup (though they claim they use chocolate syrup, but it smelled fake) and minimal roasted malt. Flavor was decently roasty and coffeeish and initially sweet with some more artificial chocolate and finishes as dry as Guinness but without the sour mash flavor. I think they could have got a nice chocolate flavor out of this beer without the use of real chocolate, but with a more complex specialty malt bill. Body was thin as water yet adequately carbonated. Blah.