Is Oyster Stout its own style?

I'd like to try an oyster stout, but to the point I don't consider it a style of it's own.

Any of you know of oyster stouts available in Minnesota?

 

No, because it currently isn't classified as one. It is basically an existing stout style with something - in this case oysters - added. To begin creating new styles for any additive (think raspberries, cherry, apple, chocolate, etc.) would be a nightmare. Expand the new style classification premise to all styles with all additives and the number is ridiculous.

 

Not really.

There are already too many style categories.

Worse is that they are partly based on history and partly based on other factors so there's not consistency.

 

I did a search at South Lyndale and France 44 and came up with one hit - Bad Mother Shucker at SL. Flying Dog makes a good one, but it isn't distributed in MN.

 

A stout is a stout. It seems like splitting hairs to separate into sub categories. Aside from that, service brewing from savannah just won a gold medal at the world beer cup for their oyster stout. It's good.

 

I think it should be.

 

In competitions those beers do have a category, though- they belong with various flavored beers (herbs, spices, fruit, etc.). There's also a Historical Beer category, which may be where Oyster Stouts belong. But I agree, each individual one of those things doesn't get it's own style.

 

These are all members of the Porter style.At best these are simply substyles but let's keep it simple.

 

Well as Bubba in Forrest Gump might have said, "you got your Eastern Oysters, your Pacific Oysters, your Kumamoto Oysters, your Belon Oysters, your Olympia Oysters, your Sydney Rock Oysters, your Shigoku Oysters; all fresh and perfect"!
Next year, overheard in Portland or Seattle or Dallas, "Do you have an Olympia or Shigoku Oyster Stout on tap this week; those Eastern Oyster Stouts taste so British"? We can hope! I used to enjoy the English Marston Oyster Stout. It was very nice for sure! Go Panthers!

 

I really enjoy a nice oyster stout. Ill even brave going to Maison Premiere in Williamsburg to have some. Thats all I have to contribute. Cheers to the OP for getting an oyster stout thread on the homepage.

 

Hair-splitting and category overkill aside, the one Oyster Stout I've tried (Palo Alto Oyster Stout) truly stands alone among the stouts I've drank. It was distinctly different and unique from all other stouts. The briny flavor and ocean funk smell that just cuts through the big roasty malts and aromas is really something else.

 

I wasn't a fan of it, but you should be able to find it somewhere.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/735/87764/

 

There should be roughly half as many "Styles" as there are

 

Lift Bridge has brewed one a couple times, but it's rotational.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18563/75473/

 

I kind of like to think they are, but they sort of fall into the (enter flavored hybrid of style X) category.

I love oysters immensely, but ironically I really do NOT like this style at all...

Such is life... but there's always good food and beer for me to enjoy.

 

While I don't disagree with the basic premise in the quote above, I'm going to be a bit of a devil's advocate here (and long-winded).

I don't understand the "it currently isn't classified as one" argument. By whom? BeerAdvocate? Michael Jackson? Flying Dog?

BeerAdvocate currently has these styles dedicated to porters:

American imperial stout
American porter
American stout
black & tan
Baltic porter
English porter
English stout
foreign stout
export stout
milk stout
sweet stout
oatmeal stout
Russian imperial stout
Irish dry stout

I'm more of a "they're all porters" thinker, so for me, that number feels really high (for others, it might be just right). This list already includes porters "with something added." Oatmeal. Milk sugar. I can totally understand the desire for exception with sugars and grains rather than oysters... but keep in mind some of the things that complicate this:

1) most folks probably wouldn't want "oatmeal IPA" to be introduced as a classification for the reasons you stated, but (trendy?) brewers are making them

2) oysters, oatmeal, and milk sugar were added to porters partially due to a "gimmicky" fad of marketing their health "benefits"

3) historians like @patto1ro have expressed the "con" in the oatmeal distinction as a historical style

Sooo, maybe we could do away with "oatmeal stout" as a style here while we're at it... but I think some people will shed a tear because they have this notion that if Michael Jackson wrote a chapter about it, then it's a Holy style (no matter what he was trying to accomplish by bringing it up). He also wrote a chapter about oyster stouts.

I do think that volume of beer produced should have some influence on weather or not we consider something a style. In other words, one beer does not a style make. There aren't many brewers making oyster stouts. If every brewer made one, I'd be a bit more inclined to consider it a style regardless of the notion that it's an existing style with something added. If Michale Jackson mentioned a type of beer (even dismissively), there are brewers who will try to make it. There's a weight given to his texts that makes people view them as a ground zero. Historically, there's been "dandelion stouts." Since Jackson didn't write about it (I'm assuming), and no brewers are making it (and probably very few brewers made one back in the day... I'm assuming again), nobody wonders if it should be a style.

I'm not sure about the idea of sub-styles - that oyster stout isn't a style but a sub-style of porter. Isn't a sub-style really doing the same thing as a style? At the same time, I get the appeal and perhaps subscribe to it anyway.

In the end, do we have any power to decide? If BeerAdvocate doesn't include "session IPA" as a style, but there are tons of brewers making beers with this label... and customers have an understanding about what this label signifies... is it a style regardless of what anyone thinks? This brings me back to my first question: it currently isn't classified as one by whom?

Anyway, this rambling post isn't aimed at tillmac62, I just used his thoughts as a jumping off point. Personally, I wouldn't want it listed here as a style either.

 

Usually it's a Foreign/Export Stout or Dry Irish Stout + oysters.

 

More of a sub-class or sub-style. There are already 104 styles here on BeerAdvocate, so you have to stop somewhere