Oat Milk Beer? Dogfish Head Is Bringing It to the Masses

I’m sure this is nothing at all like how I’m imagining it.

Here’s a question for all my brewing friends here, on the technical side. Calagione says the oats make the beer feel lighter than it is, in terms of ABV. Could the opposite happen, with low ABV beers coming across as more full-bodied? If so, I could see some of the more “hop water”-tasting Session IPAs compensating for their thinness through a similar process.

 

Top tier trolling.

 

I am down. I like oats in beer and do enjoy pretty much anything oat across the board.

 

I had never heard of oat milk before so I had to conduct a web search to learn what this thing is.

What other food item will Sam use to brew beer next?

Cheers!

 

How do you even find the teat to milk the oat?

 

Other Half has been producing oat milk IPAS for a few years now.

From my understanding it’s just a liquification of a certain oat blend, as opposed to just adding flaked oats to the grist. I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a food item. Moreso a more advanced way of blending the grains into the mash.

FWIW, some of Other Half’s more balanced and flavorful beers used oat milk blends.

 

yes oats or wheat add body to a beer so adding them to a session ipa would help it out. Not sure why more breweries don’t do that since most session IPAs are so thin.

 

My son was on a kick and avoiding milk and was buying Oat Milk by the gallons. I showed him how to make it and saved him a ton of $$. Wasn't half bad, would put it in my granola, where it shined was dumping a bunch of mixed berries in it when blending

 

It's tricky but it happens. During the grain malting, steeping starts the oat kernel into the germinating process, followed by a cooling period when a root begins to escape the bran of the seed. And it's at this very moment that you can milk that seed thru that root tit by using highly specialized machines to collect the milk.

Of further interest, you have to be careful not to over-stimulate that root tit or it will go flaccid and pull back. These seeds become waste and are then sent to cereal companies for making oatmeal. And now you know the rest of the story.

 

Guess all beer has food items in it

 

Right. Except that the food product that is present in that photo has very little correlation to oat milk in the brewing process.. as a brewer you wouldn’t add a commercial food product to your brew kettle, you would hopefully create your own oat milk concentrate.

 

Not to mention I would imagine it's a heck of lot cheaper to buy the oats for pennies and make the oat milk rather than buy prepackaged oat milk which is usually priced as a premium product.

I use malt syrup in my pizza dough when I make it. Makes a good pie!

 

Supposed to be one of the secrets of great pretzels too

 

Other Half came to mind for me too when I first saw this, but when looking I found that those beers use a combination of oats and lactose, not actual oat milk. They call them Oat Cream IPAs. Oat milk is a standalone product that can also be homemade. This DFH beer seems to use a form of "oat milk" without the lactose cream part.

 

I’d definitely try this. I’ve been using oat milk in my coffee, tea and shakes for quite some time. Stuff is delicious and as a bonus requires 7x less water to produce than the equivalent amount of cows milk.

 

Not disagreeing with you, but notice the unusual way they are spinning this for this beer:

 

Catnip, lemon balm, and peppermint. We drink tons of iced green tea graced with these herbs. I have a fine cat that is my friend and she loves fresh catnip just so naturally. It is fun and she watches me when I go to the garden.

 

I've given up on Hazy IPAs but I think I'll try this one. I do wish they were making it with a bit lower ABV. BTW I'm one of those converts to oat milk. I substitute it for milk in cereal, pancakes, cappuccino, and even my oatmeal.

 

Proclamation made an oatmilk double IPA earlier this year called Gizmo Gadget... I wasn't hugely into it because it really did taste like oat-based breakfast cereal with a bit of hoppiness, but some people might really like that character.

 

Burlington Beer Company has had an hazy IPA with oat malt and flakes since at least 2016. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33136/249501/

Also Oatmeal stouts go way back. It's not like these beers have whole oats floating around in them, including the unfiltered beers. I just assumed the oats were getting pureed or coarsely strained anyway. So, my impression is this is nothing new, but Dogfish's heavy-handed marketing the oats is...*ahem*... innovative.


I'm also another oat milk convert. My wife and I looked for milk alternatives for environmental reasons, health, and I am mildly lactose intolerant. Between almond, soy, and other nut-based products we tried, oat milk is by far the closest in flavor and texture to real milk. I'm not drinking glasses of milk straight and there some cooking recipes need real milk, but for every day use in cereal, granola, coffee, etc. oat milk is great.

 

It’s magic stuff! Makes light beers more full and big beers lighter.

I don’t know if oat milk has a different impact vs actual oats used in the mash. I can see how the creaminess makes a bigger beer easier to drink and hides the abv. I’ve had a couple triple NE/hazy IPAs that use a high % of oat/wheat in the malt bill. It does round out the edges and makes it more drinkable.

 

Proc is dope, I haven't been since before covid but I definitely need to get back there. I remember hearing about that beer but never went to try it

 

They see me trollin they be hatin

 

Well not anymore.

I’m not sure if I want to try this beer or not, but this thread sure is making me want to drink more oat milk!

 

A couple interesting tidbits that stuck out to me in this article:

“Oat milk is definitely having a zeitgeist moment right now in the culinary world,” Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione told me. “Sales of hard seltzers—the fastest-growing alcohol sector—are up low triple digits, year-to-date. Sales of oat milk are up almost 1,000-percent this year. I read somewhere that the growth percentage of oat milk even eclipses that of hand sanitizer this year.”

That’s insane, never realized how popular oat milk is.

Indeed, Calagione explains that each oat variation adds something different to Hazy-O!’s final profile. “Malted oats contribute a delicate malty sweetness,” he begins. “The naked oats contribute a subtle toasty and caramel character. Rolled oats contribute a dense haze. And the piece de resistance, oat milk, contributes Hazy-O!’s silky soft, creamy mouthfeel that makes it drink like a 5-percent ABV session sipper, even though it is a 7.1-percent ABV powerhouse.”

So he is using malted oats like other breweries in this New England IPA, among other versions of oats, including oat milk. I just kind of wonder how many of those characteristics will really stand out given how fruit forward New England IPAs can be.

Beyond oat milk, Hazy O! also utilizes a laundry list of hops—Citra, Mosaic, Azacca, Centennial, Simcoe, BRU-1, Mandarina Bavaria, Sabro—to create a beer billed as featuring aromas of citrus, mandarin orange, grapefruit, mango, and pineapple followed by a juicy and tropical flavor led by mango, pineapple, and citrus.

Never heard of BRU-1. Also noted that he’s using Sabro hops. Coconut oat milk anyone?

“Dogfish Head has been innovating unique IPAs for over two decades. In fact, the continual-hopping device we invented to make the O.G. imperial IPA, 90 Minute IPA, is now in a permanent collection at the Smithsonian.

This is pretty cool, never knew that.

“Finally… How do I put this…? It’s fucking delicious!” he then quips.

Classic Sam!

 

I just noticed Duclaw has a canned IPA in stores called Oatshake that is made with oat milk, steel cut oats, and flaked oats (with the "milk" getting prominent mention on the label). Added to BA back in January.

 

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

― Oscar Wilde

Cheers!

 

I'm lactose intolerant, and oat milk is my go to. Happy to try this, even though Hazy IPAs aren't my thing.

 

The dudes that make bagels in my shared work space use it as well.

 

Yeah, if anything, adding oats should make for more mouthfeel. IIRC, someone over on the homebrew forum a year or so ago was adding oat milk mid-boil to get a heavy, hazy IPA.

 

I recall earlier on in the pandemic there being a shortage of oat milk, at least according to the dude doing nitro coffee out of the space.

So far as using Golden Naked Oats and Oat Malt as well as the Oat Milk, as they say, "in for a penny, in for a pound". I take a similar approach in my beers that use a grain outside of barley.

 

I wouldn't call anything DuClaw does "greatness"

 

From a taste perspective I'd definitely be interested to try this. I'm not into the whole oat milk thing, but I certainly do appreciate the mouthfeel aspect of what oats can do.

I honestly just don't understand this though: "And the piece de resistance, oat milk, contributes Hazy-O!’s silky soft, creamy mouthfeel that makes it drink like a 5-percent ABV session sipper, even though it is a 7.1-percent ABV powerhouse.” Why would having a 7% beer drink like a session beer be considered a positive? We're always seeing press about how breweries are trying (though usually failing IMO) to make their session/low ABV beers not taste watered down. To see that turned on it's head as a selling point seems counter intuitive.

 

Yeah, I though about truncating the quote to just be “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery..."

I will do so next time.

Cheers!

 

Also, session sipper is an oxymoron.

I'd love to have a 4% beer that drank like a 7% beer, but I've yet to have one.

 

I am severely lactose intolerant. If I drink milk I can’t count to ten before I throw it up. I’d like to see this type of thing in stouts. I’ll drink milk stouts but the lactose hurts me. Oat milk is the closest thing to me consistency wise it even will froth. I’d be interested in this release

 

The wife and I both use oat milk for all our milk needs. Mostly cereal but it's good in Mac and cheese and such as well. It's smooth and creamy without forming mucous and it just tastes better than cow's milk. Since converting I'd been wondering if it might become a thing in beer as well. I'd definitely be interested in trying an oat milk stout.