Big Brekkie Breakfast Stout

This is a specialty beer for sure! There is a lot going on here: coffee, oatmeal, maple syrup, bacon... all we're missing is the pancakes! The beer pours a very dark brown (nearly black) beer with garnet highlights, a dense cream-colored head that didn’t last all that long, with overall good clarity for a stout. The aroma is very interesting, I do get some hints of straight black coffee and smoky bacon – very interesting. I get a hint of caramel-like malt aroma and that’s about it. Still, very interesting and the smokiness of the bacon is not at all overplayed and meshes well with the coffee. In the flavor, I get a lot of roasty black malt, some coffee and a little bit of underlying sweetness, which balances the dry bitterness of the coffee and roasted malts. I don’t get a lot of creaminess, which I would expect from an oatmeal stout, and I am missing some of the maple initially, but as the beer warmed, I did get some maple highlights in the finish. The bitterness is almost too high, but it is smoothed out and accentuated by the coffee and roasted grains. The beer is medium to full-bodied and fairly smooth and creamy. I also detect a little alcohol warmth in there as well. Overall, this is an interesting specialty beer and one you shouldn’t fear, even if it does contain bacon. While I found the bacon attribute to be more smoky than savory, this was a definitely a fun beer to drink.