Big Sky Brewing - Slow Elk Oatmeal Stout

First off, I'd like to comment on the Iowa State win over Oklahoma State on Friday night.....WOW!  Talk about a huge upset!  What a way to finish up the season at home, with a win over the #2 ranked team in the country.  It was one of the most exciting ISU football games in history, and it's wreaking havoc in the BCS.  Paul Rhodes is a phenomenal coach - check out his locker room speech after the game - who wouldn't get behind this guy?!  He's so much better than that asshole Gene Chizik.  Great job Iowa State.

Tonight I'll be drinking Slow Elk Oatmeal Stout from Big Sky Brewing in Missoula, Montana.  This is a limited release brew available only in September and October.  You may remember back in March, I reviewed another limited release Big Sky brew called Cowboy Coffee Porter, which turned out to be coffee-infused blah.  Slow Elk features a strange, mutant hybrid cow-elk on the label.   The website provides an explanation, "Happens every year; people shootin' cows.  That's how the Slow Elk got it's name.  Enjoy the creamy texture, great malt complexity and the unequaled smoothness of this Northern Rockies Oatmeal Stout.  Stock your fridge the easy way and keep an ear open for the unmistakable bugle of the slow elk....Mooo!"  So...I don't get it.  Do people in Montana call cows 'slow elk'?  According to the google-brain, slow elk is a southern term for a domestic cow that is shot from the roadside and butchered in the field.  A form of domestic cow poaching.....weird!

This stout is a 5.4% alcohol.  It's a black color, clear and some light is able to get through.  About 2 inches of tan head form after the pour, with decent retention.  The aroma is subdued with oats, cocoa powder, and a hint of black licorice.  Not bad.  The first drink is certainly smooth and silky, as expected from the style.  Sweeter than I expected, with a mild dark/milk chocolate flavor, molasses, and a light amount of roasted malts.  Subtle hints of nuts, pistachios.  Then some gritty, light coffee grinds come in.  The finish leaves a soft astringency lingering, difficult to describe, not good but not overwhelming either.  The mouthfeel is light for the style, with low carbonation...certainly a little thinner than I would like.

Overall Rating:  This was a mediocre oatmeal stout.  Very light and drinkable, but also fairly bland.  I'll finish the bottle, but you won't see me purchasing it ever again.  C-

Big Sky Brewing - Cowboy Coffee Porter

Tonight's brew comes to me from an interesting trade I made with Steve last week.  We decided to trade a couple brews, my Weyerbacher Heresy Imperial Stout for his Cowboy Coffee Porter.  By the way, Steve, you forgot to bring the Weyerbacher home with you - it's still sitting happily in my fridge, begging me to drink it.  The trade is only valid for 1 more week, otherwise, it's going in my mug.  ANYWAY, this beer is a limited release porter that is infused with coffee flavor and hopped with Hallertau.  It comes in at 6.2%ABV.  To be honest, I've put off drinking this beer for a while now, because coffee-infused beers generally don't sit well with me.  But tonight it's time to push past that bias and give this a try!

This beer pours a brown-almost-black that doesn't let any light through.  Leaves a nice 1/4 inch of tan head.  The aroma is ground coffee mixed with sweet, roasty chocolate malts.  The first sip is an overwhelming, mouth-puckering wave of sour, that's right, Sour, coffee.  There is a lingering, sour bitterness that hangs off of the coffee flavors.  There are some dark roasted malts that poke through the coffee, but not enough to really impact the overall flavor of the beer.  The finish is crisp and faintly metallic.  The carbonation is medium and the body is relatively light. 

Overall Rating:  (3.0 out of 6.0)  Well, this beer turned out to be exactly what I feared it to be - Coffee.  I absolutely love coffee and drink it like a fiend every day of the week.  But for some reason, it just doesn't work for me when it's too prominently displayed in beer.  This is entirely subjective, so if you like the coffee-infused style, you will probably love this Big Sky brew.

Big Sky Ivan the Terrible

Big Sky Brewing Company is located out in Missoula, Montana.  This brewery is probably best known for it's creative, strange brew names, like Moose Drool, Scape Goat, Trout Slayer, Slow Elk, etc.  Big Sky was founded back in 1995, and their first batch of beer was a Whistle Pig Red Ale.  A couple months later, they built their first batch of Moose Drool, which is probably their most well-known beer today.  In 2009, they became the 45th largest brewery in the US with 36K barrels brewed. 

I picked up this limited release brew at Lee's shop (Thanks Lee).  This is an Imperial Stout, at 8.75%ABV and 65 IBUs, brewed with Pale, Crystal, Roast, and Black malts, with Simcoe and East Kent Goldings hops.  According to the label, the beer is aged in Oak Bourbon barrels for a minimum of 3 months, and bottle conditioned.  The label also states that this is bottle# 3516 out of 3800 total. 

The label depicts a painting of Ivan the Terrible.  According to Wikipedia, the primary source of all human knowledge, Ivan the Terrible was a prince of Moscow back in the 1500s who conquered lots of land during his reign.  Apparently he was prone to go into mega-rages and was likely suffering from some sort of mental-illness like schizophrenia.  Sounds like a winner and all-around nice guy!

This beer pours a thick, viscous texture and pitch black color into my snifter.  A hefty amount of thick, dark tan head is present.  The aroma is heavy with dark fruits, molasses, and burnt caramel.  There is also a hint of bourbon in the nose.  None of the roasted chocolate malts that you typically find in an Imperial Stout are present in this aroma. 

The first thing I notice in the drink is the syrupy texture and the intense sweetness.  The flavor begins with a wave of sweet vanilla and bourbon.  There are also hints of dark fruits (black cherries and raisins), and some sweet malts in the background.  The dominant character throughout is the sweet vanilla, and the slightly boozy bourbon that plays with it.  The alcohol is present only in the warmth after the drink.  The texture is syruppy and almost oily, with a creamy light carbonation. 

Overall Rating:  (3.5 out of 6.0)  This is a difficult beer for me to review.  For my palate, this beer is simply too sweet, and lacks any balancing factor like alcohol or hop bitterness.  It's certainly not a bad beer, the flavors are complex and I appreciate the nuanced bourbon character that this beer brings.  But I can't get past the assault of sweetness that holds from start to finish.  Where are the bitter roasted malts?!  I think that's all this beer would need to be great.  If you've tried this beer and disagree with me, I'd love to hear from you.  Am I missing something?