Schlafly Coffee Stout

Brewed By: St. Louis Brewery

Style: Oatmeal Stout

ABV: 5.7%

IBU: 30

The St. Louis Brewery has been brewing for about 20 years now and was the first brewery to open in St. Louis after Prohibition ended. This Oatmeal stout was combined with Kaldi’s coffee to create its unique flavor and aroma (Kaldi’s coffee is a St. Louis based coffee roasting company). I will say that Oatmeal stouts are generally very low on the stout totem pole for me, but I was pleasantly surprised by this brew. I was not very impressed by the last coffee stout that I had either (see previous review), so I was already hoping for something a little better.

Look - It poured a near black/dark brown with a half finger width of light tan head sitting on top of it. The head did stick around for a good while as well.

Smell – Has a VERY strong coffee smell. If I was blindfolded and forced to smell a cup of cold coffee and this beer, I don’t know that I would be able to tell much difference. There is a slight hop aroma, but those coffee notes overshadow most of it. Also a decent chocolate and malt smell.

Taste – Well….I can say that it doesn’t differ much from the smell, which is good because I love coffee. I could ALMOST see myself waking up in the morning and having one of these before heading off to work, but alas, my employer would not like that. Despite the strong coffee taste, there was a decent amount of bitterness from the Marynka hops, which have a high content of bitterness substances. It was still a very refreshing taste and was decently light on the tongue for having so much of a flavor profile. I think part of that is that it might have been a little overcarbonated, so it didn’t sit very heavily on the palate. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much of an aftertaste to this beer.

My food choices tonight were chocolate based to see if the complex chocolate taste would downplay the taste of the beer. With the mint chocolate chip ice cream (yes, beer and ice cream), it tasted really good still. It didn’t actually change that much when paired up. Then I went to straight chocolate, Dove chocolate to be exact; yet again, not a whole of change in the flavor of the beer. The chocolate based actually really complimented the coffee and chocolate flavor of the beer.

Conclusion – For an Oatmeal stout, I was pleasantly surprised. If you are not a fan of coffee, you will not like this beer and will hate everything I have said about it. It had a decent body, strong aromas, and quite a coffee taste. It’s the only beer I have tried from this brewery, but I am definitely going to look into trying some more. You should pick up a bottle or two of this brew to enjoy in the morning….or whenever you want.

I give this beer a B+ (I try to reserve my A’s for exceptional beers)

This brewery also has free tours. So if anyone wants to go to St. Louis….TAKE ME!

Happy Drinking!