Temple Oatmeal Stout
Temple Brewing Company

 

 

 

330ml bottle purchased from Slowbeer in Melbourne.

Pours a gruff black colour, with enough lightness at the edges to show you its true, deep brown hue. Head is fine, but minimal, forming a crema at the edges of the glass, but leaving little lacing. Carbonation is also fine, even though the body is pretty light and fluid. Overall, it's decent without being exceptional.

Nose is very pleasant. Deep roasted sweetness, giving dark chocolate and toasted bread characters. This mingles with an earthiness and a deeper dark fruit character. Perhaps even the most subtle hint of smoke—perhaps just a reverberation from the dark malt. Overall, it's extremely good: plenty of complexity, but melded into a big, supple whole.

Taste is lighter, but still very suitable. Clean roasted bite forms the forefront of the palate, giving a slightly charred, almost dry stout character. Beyond this is all the molten smoothness of sweet cocoa and chocolate, held up by a savoury dark grain bread depth. Some faint berry notes flit in on the finish. Feel is smooth enough, while remaining very fluid.

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there's something extremely nostalgic about this beer for me: perhaps it harks back to one of the early craft beers that got me interested in beer. Whatever it is, it's very tasty nonetheless, and very, very easy to drink. Temple really do consistently do excellent beers.

Pours black with a lasting head.
Nose shows roasted malt, oatmeal, soft cocoa and some grainy malt.
Lots of plain roasted malt as a flavour too, but not particularly interesting.
Too highly carbonated.
Reasonably solid but not going blow anyone's mind in terms of character.