By Iron Chef Leftovers
When we think of beer brewed with adjuncts, we think of the mass-produced American Lager like Bud – flavorless and lacking any real character. By definition, a beer brewed with anything besides water, yeast, grain and hops is an adjunct beer and most can be delicious if not outstanding. NW Peaks Brewing did an adjunct beer (two actually) as part of their Mountain Beer series in March. The first of the two to be reviewed is the Granite Oat Ale. The beer contains about 20% oats and is not a dark beer (which is where you will usually find the addition of oats).
From the NW Peaks website:
Granite is the second ‘adjunct’ (oats) beer for March. Granite ended dry and crisp with oat notes. The oats added some silkiness to the mouthfeel as well. However, the featured character is the NZ Saaz hop that we used, which creates a nice floral character in the finished beer.
The beer is orange-amber in color with lots of oats and malt on the nose and slight hints of hops interspersed. The beer is very oat forward on the palate with a slight umami feel in the mouth from them. The long oat backbone slowly fades into a slight malty sweetness with a slightly bitter hop profile before transitioning into a long malt finish. As the beer warms, the oat presence becomes more pronounced and the complexity is increased with a touch more sweetness, a slightly floral character and a bit less bitterness from the hops.
Definitely an interesting and well-executed oat based beer which you should run out and try next time it makes an appearance.
NW Peaks Granite Oat Ale follows the trail and leads with a solid 3 horses to water out of 5.
FlatbreadGarden 