Oxbow Oatmeal Stout
Karlsson Brewing

Oxbow is perhaps a case where the beer suffers from restrained expression due to cold serving temperature and glassware. Karlsson serves their beers in refrigerated glasses. This has a tendency to stifle head and lace and reduce carbonation. The beers themselves are also painfully cold. Under most circumstances, a bit of hand warming or exposure to room temperatures can restore the beer to a range of temperatures more accommodating to the human senses. In this case however, I don’t think such efforts would serve any purpose.

Named for a nearby park where the Sandy River bends in the shape of an ox yoke, Oxbow exhibits only marginal toffee expression but otherwise lacks definition. The body is thin, the gruff, sandy head it arrived with departed quickly, and the beer showed no lace or backbone. Contrite, stagnant and uninspired.