Caldera Oatmeal Stout
Caldera Brewing Company

 

 

Caldera's Oatmeal Stout pours dark as night, with a nice head, and some lacing.

It basically nails the style. It's very smooth, with good roasted malts. It's not bitter. No, it's not a flavor bomb, with huge complexity, but that's not the point of the style. It's just a solid sout.

If I could get this in 12 ounce six packs, it would be a go-to stout in my refrigerator (next to Deschutes Obsidian).

Serving: on tap at the brewery.

Kinda lighter brown for an oatmeal stout, just looked milder than a stout. Also lacking the roast aroma of a stout.

Taste was more like a nitro stout, it hit the smooth notes, but it lacked the roasty notes. The heft. I get its an oatmeal stout, and therefore is going for a smooth ride, but there's gotta be an engine to push the ride in the first place.

While Caldera is generally above average, this offering was below average.

Pours a finger of head on a black body.
The aroma is lots of burnt and roasted malt.
The taste is burnt and roasted malt as well... lots of it. There is a balancing bitterness.
The texture is smooth with a softness to it.
I enjoyed it. Some might find the burnt flavor too much.

 

Brown in color, somewhere between a porter and a brown ale. Lacking in aroma, but no off stuff.

Same with the taste, lacking flavor, complexity, just went with smoothness. No off flavors though, so I can't say this is bad, just unadventurous, especially for Caldera, whom I think is generally underrated. You really have to search to pull anything out of this in terms of the usual chocolate/coffee flavors, really, the only thing I can tell is that the oats did their job, because this is smooth and unoffensive.

Other than that, extremely pedestrian.

Caldera presents yet another circumstance where the brewery does not operate a brewpub, doesn’t bottle their beers, and is located 300 miles from my home. To review their beers I traveled to their hometown of Ashland, OR and drank at the Ashland Creek Bar and Grill. This may have been a mistake.

Though I had other reasons to visit Ashland, it’s disappointing (to say the least) to travel 300 miles and be served a spoiled beer. Both the Oatmeal Stout and Ashland Amber were of poor quality at the Ashland Creek Bar and Grill. In the case of the Oatmeal Stout, a nice measure of cream and a wayward thread of mint were marred by a sulfuric smell and likely bacterial infection. Though I can’t say for certain, my best guess is that the house tap lines were something other than sanitized.

I will attempt to revisit and re-evaluate this beer. But for the time being, it’s important to ask a pertinent question about quality control. Caldera is a 10 bbl microbrewery in a small town. How much responsibility do they have towards assuring that taps serving their product in their hometown are kept reasonably clean and free of bacterial encroachment? My answer to this question is that the brewery does have some responsibility to assure quality pours in its own hometown. This is especially so when they operate no pub of their own. Not only does this effort protect the consumer from being served a spoiled beer, but the enforcement of quality control measures at the point of consumption simply makes good business sense.

‘Till then, there’s nothing I really care say about this beer other than to wish whoever pursues it greater luck than I had at Ashland Creek.