Of all the world’s major beer styles, stout appears to be the one that’s easiest to recognize, at least at first glance. Just give them a dark, roasty, heavy ale, and they’ll exclaim, “By Jove, I think it’s a stout!” Likewise, many brewers adhere to the erroneous perception that stouts are among the easiest beers to brew. The common argument holds that, once darkness and roastiness take over the fermenter, the fine-tuning in the grain, hops and yeast departments that leads to great beers in other styles is no longer necessary.    

There is of course some truth to that argument, but if you want to make a really superior stout — especially a smooth, well-rounded outmeal stout — that argument can also lead to disaster. Burnt notes from roasted malts may be the signature flavor of a stout, including an oatmeal stout, but they are not the only flavors you should taste in a dark brew. In a sublime stout, you need to create an effective interplay between the robust immediateness of the roasted, acrid malts and the floral-aromatic reverberations of the hops. And don’t kid yourself: In a dark brew this can be just as difficult as in a brunette or blonde beer.   

In an oatmeal stout, perhaps more so than in other stouts, you also have to pay attention to the body. If the stout’s substance comes across as cloying or syrupy, the beer’s enjoyment might evaporate. Remember that complexity is also subtlety, even when you are putting together a hefty stout! On the palate, an oatmeal stout may be a heavyweight — however, if brewed with finesse, it can be truly elegant.

A Murky Start for a Dark Brew:   

The stout family in general, including the oatmeal versions, are all obscure in origin. They are also incredibly diverse in modern brewing practices. For these reasons, stout is a typical illustration of why one should never be dogmatic about the definition of a beer style. Just consider the many attributes by which different stout types are identified on the label. Stouts can come with any of the following prefixes, either individually or in combination: chocolate, cream, double, draught, dry, English, export, extra, foreign, genuine, imperial, Irish, milk, original, oyster, Russian, single, sweet or velvet. Did I get them all? I would find it very difficult to give clear and binding specifications for each of these stouts, and probably no two brewers could come up with the same set of specifications for the same substyle.    

Nobody is quite certain about when stout as a style branched off from the generic ales of Britain and Ireland. The oldest references to stout date to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, but what the term really meant in those days, I would not dare to debate.   

But we all agree on one point: As beers change in color from pale ales to brown ales to dark ales, there is a point on the color scale, however vaguely defined, at which we start calling beers porters and stouts. It is on the darkest side of the beer style spectrum that you’ll find the stouts — brews of remarkable variation in strength and profile. And somewhere amongst all these shady brews, there are also the oatmeal stouts.   

Oatmeal stouts do not differ much from the other stouts, except for the obvious — they contain somewhere between five and 20 percent oats as a percentage of the grain bill. An oatmeal stout grain bill can be complex, often composed of five to seven grains, or it can be very simple. Most of the grain is two-row pale ale malt as a foundation. There is usually some roasted as well as flaked barley for color. These grains also contribute some chewiness and body from unfermentables. The complex grain bills often have some dextrin malt for residual sweetness. Then there is usually some black malt for color and signature flavor, and of course, some flaked oats for creaminess.   

Given these variations in the grain bill, oatmeal stouts can be as heavy as a Russian imperial or as light as an Irish draught. Perhaps the best-known commercial oatmeal stouts in the New World are two English imports, Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout from Tadcaster at 4.7% ABV and Young’s Oatmeal Stout from London, which refuses to reveal its ABV on the label, but tastes to me like a five-percenter.

INGREDIENTS: Oats and More   

You can make a stout with just about any water commonly available in the United States. Stouts are being made on every continent. Many American liquor stores carry stouts from all parts of Britain and Ireland, as well as from South Africa, Australia, the West Indies, Japan, the Asian subcontinent and Scandinavia. From this I conclude that water issues ought not to be too serious a concern for the North American homebrewer.   

When selecting hops for an oatmeal stout, pretend that it is a pale ale. Just because the roasted malt flavors and the creamy body predominate, do not think that your choice of hops is unimportant. Nor should you over-hop just to create a contrast to the roastiness. You are looking for a pleasant harmony of tastes, not for a disagreeable cacophony. So, to give complexity to your brew, use top-quality, earthy, floral hops for both bittering and flavor. Well suited are East Kent Goldings, Fuggles, Styrian Goldings, Bullion, or even Hallertauer Mittelfrüh or Mt. Hood, for either addition. You could also try Magnum or Galena for bittering and Willamette or Tettnanger for aroma. Though many microbreweries use Cascade as their main hops in stouts, I find that Cascade in excessive quantities competes too vigorously with the complex grain flavors of a well-brewed oatmeal stout. Cascade hops can add greatly to a stout if no more than 20% of the bittering comes from it. But you make your own choices. After all, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.   

Oatmeal stout wort tends to be heavy in unfermentables because almost one third of the grain bill may come from such grist varieties as flaked oats, chocolate malt, dextrin malt, black patent malt, caramel malt and roasted barley. Therefore, you should always clarify the wort in the brew kettle with Irish moss. This reduces the proteins and particulate in the finished beer.    

For a fairly dry oatmeal stout, ferment with Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale) or White Labs WLP004  (Irish Ale) yeast. For a medium dry finish use Wyeast 1028 (London Ale) or White Labs WLP005 (British Ale) yeast. For some residual sweetness, pitch Wyeast 1318 (London III) or White Labs WLP002 (English Ale) yeast. Given the heaviness of the stout, a good yeast cell count is important, so it is best to pitch two packages or a starter.   

As a style, stout in general — though not the oatmeal variety in particular — seems to smile upon extract-only brewers. For this blackest of black ales, many producers make preformulated malts in a can. (The same cannot be said for the black lagers — the schwarzbier and the rauchbier.) Some of them are very Irish, such as the Mountmellick Famous Irish Stout Malt Extract. Others just say “Stout” on the can. Extract brewers become extract brewers primarily because they do not want to mess with grain, so you probably think stout’s the style for you: Just grab your can opener and soon your kettle will be boiling, right? Well, maybe not. Unfortunately, all canned stout extracts come pre-hopped, and none of them are oatmeal stouts! This requires two concessions on the part of the extract brewer.   

First, you will have to steep some oatmeal and strain it. (For steeping tips, see “Homebrew  University” in the September 2001 issue of BYO.) The second compromise relates to the selection of your hops, because this choice was made by the extract manufacturer.     Given the heftiness of the oatmeal stout, for best results you will probably want to use about seven to eight pounds of malt extract. Sometimes a sugar product, such as corn syrup, is part of the content of the can. If so,  expect the beer to be drier.  

Horst Dornbusch is the author of “Prost! The Story of German Beers” (1997, Brewers Publications.)