Fireside
Idawild Brewing Company

Taster at brewery. Near black pour, flat, kinda ugly. Ashy aroma and taste. All campfire, no marshmallow or graham, not even chocolate or sweetness. Didn't finish.

 

legitimate new brewery here doing cool stuff, this is an adjunct stout yeah, but a good one, classed up, sweet but not diabetic, and if they have it on now in high summer, its something i assume will be around probably forever here. fine with me. this is an oatmeal stout done with graham cracker, vanilla beans, and milk sugar, heaps of it i assume, and perhaps the coolest part is how they serve it, a skewered marshmallow lit ablaze with a torch, blow it out when toasted to your desired doneness, and there you have it proper smores stout! nice shiny dark brown color, short head but lively with the flaming confection. aroma and flavor of decently deep roast, a little coffee there, melted chocolate bar and generic candy, with some cocoa in the mix and some vanilla richness, bean character seems natural to me, bold too, more of that as it warms and i think rightly enhanced by the lactose, but at the same time, its a lot of sugar, and this drinks sweeter than it needs to, heavy for its modest abv, and truthfully a lot more tooth coating than i want from an oatmeal stout. that said, the graham cracker character is appreciable all the way through it, and i like the coffee flashes i get. cut the lactose back even half way and this crushes for me, just too sugary to want a second one. cool beer though, awesome presentation with the marshmallow, great introduction to this spot which took over in the old barbarian location. check them out!