Friday, June 4, 2010

We drink porters like this for breakfast

I like my oats and barley flaked, roasted, smothered, covered and scattered all the way. Confused? Well probably less so than Kid Rock who decided the best way to redeem himself following a Waffle House brawl was to start his own beer line. Yeah, let me know how that works out. And they put T.I. in jail? At least the American Bad @ss ended up better off than this guy who couldn't hold his hashbrowns.


At some point in college you knew a guy -- who we'll call Devon -- who resorted to emptying a Keystone into his Cheerios. To that end Sunday we will try our hand at crafting a Breakfast Stout.


The description reads like a Kashi cereal ingredient list. 
"It's a cross between an oatmeal stout (a high proportion of flaked oats creates a silky texture) and a sweet stout (lactose gives sweetness and a full body) with the coffee-like flavor of roasted barley. A buttery note from the yeast completes the impression of a complete meal in a glass."


Got all that? Yes this kit has us adding a pound and a half of oats to the boil. I must admit I was more skeptical of the Oatmeal Brown Sugar Ice Cream I sampled last weekend at Smitty's in Burlington. 


According to our friends at Wikipedia -- you know who you are -- the Stout brewing tradition dates back  to the time of the English Civil War (mid 1600s for us Americans). Somewhere down the line the stouts, which derived their name from being among the strongest beers available, interbred with the Porters, which drew their given name from men on boats, and the pedigree chart went all cross-eyed.


Much blood and beer has seemingly been shed on the relationship between Porters and Stouts but it's important to note that our Breakfast Stout will be more in the spirit of a Porter in that it will take more than a few servings before the Get Fuzzy  cartoon in the Sunday funnies begins to make any sense. It should be a well-balanced beer even for those who are faint of heart and it won't cause you to stroke out the way Jarrod's Wee Heavy promises to. 


Join us as the East of Elon Taproom breaks the seal on the Stouts. Let the countdown begin at 30 days till black and tans...



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