#42: Renaissance Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

All right almost up to speed with these posts now…

I was a little disappointed this past week, when I heard that Renaissance Brewing was staging a Tap Takeover up at O’Carrols, in Auckland, for the release of their new batch of the Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Their sales rep invited me along, but I had some work commitments that I just couldn’t seem to get out of  *sigh*

But it just so happened that we were having a bit of an event at work in the weekend, something I had been pushing for, for about six months now…
Fill Your Own Taps for Craft Beer! Yes! Here in Hamilton!
It took a bit of organising, but I finally got the boss to agree to it! They were installed earlier in the week, and Saturday (yesterday) was the day of our big launch!
So when I found out that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the launch of the Craftsman, I rang Renaissance, begging and pleading for a keg that we could have by the weekend.
Being the awesome guys they are, they turned around and said: “Yeah, Sure”
And so it was, we got to tap a keg of the Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout at our little Tapstravaganza!

…not to brag, but I think I managed to get a pretty good line up organised for the launch, we had 4 taps on which we had:

1.  Emerson’s Brewers Reserve: Oreti red
2. 8 Wired Hopwired IPA
3. Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
4. Moa Reserve St. Josephs Tripel

The steady flow of people coming through from when we kicked of at 2pm right through to about 5 when it finally began to slow, seemed to solidify a little that this was a good way to go.
The crowd favourite was split between the 8 Wired Hop Wired and the Emerson’s Brewers Reserve, a lot of people were commenting on the fact that they loved the Craftsman, but they thought it was a little sweet to get through a full bottle …I wasn’t so sure…

When Everything wound down I took home a flagon of each to tide me through the long weekend. On the back of a cold winters night, I figured I’d start with the Craftsman I had been looking forward to since Wednesday.
…and what a good choice! It poured a deep dark brown, almost black, with about a finger of mocha coloured head. The nose was a big hit of  bittersweet chocolate, with notes of chocolate and just a hint of (you guessed it) chocolate.
I hadn’t even put the glass to my lips and I was already pretty impressed.
When I did finally get it up to my mouth it was just an explosion of more dark bittersweet chocolate! Maybe some nutty characters in the background… It had a dry, bitter finish that lingered on the palate for quite a while, really good for a chilly evening.
If I had any criticism, it would only be that I wanted it to be a little fuller on the palate, but don’t take that as a complaint! I loved every drop!

And to those who though that it was going to be too sweet to drink a flagon of it …wrong! Within the blink of an eye I had devoured the entire flagon of it, and was thirsty for more! …mmmm chocolate…