Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Breakfast is Served

We all have our routines, especially in the morning. And Terrapin, by just adding the alcohol to the oatmeal and coffee, has gone ahead and eliminated one of the steps in my morning routine for me. Thank you and good morning.

Released every year in November, Terrapin teams with a Georgia coffee company named Jittery Joe’s to make the imperial stout as part of it’s “Monster Beer Tour”, a seasonal series which Terrapin unoriginally describes as “extreme”. And for a brewery whose major marketing thrust consists of lovable but not-so-subtle ganja references, you wouldn’t be surprised that the unofficial name of this brew is “Wake ‘N’ Bake”. For those of you who skipped college, or high school even, and don’t catch the meaning of wake and bake, it refers to the common practice of waking up (“wake”) and smokin’ the herb first thing (“the bake”) right before you start your long day of watching cartoons and smoking more weed more.

And keep in mind, Athens, Georgia, the location of Terrapin Brewing Co, is a college town/party epicenter. Know thy market. But the “Wake ‘N’ Bake” reference is only found on the website and nowhere on the bottle, at least not in my next-door market of Alabama. Perhaps marketing and sales at Terrapin knew it was too much of a commercial risk to essentially have the word “duuuuude” placed on their six-packs across America. So they decided to pipe it down a bit.

The Sticky Icky

So Terrapin adds the oat flakes, the pale, chocolate, and black malts, along with Chinook and Northern Brewer hops (collectively known as the “Bake” part), and the jittery guys add the grinds (the “Wake” part).

Crack it open and it pours thick and creamy like chocolate milk. A quick thin filmy light tan-white head of foam appears and begins to bubble out into little patches revealing an oily darkness beneath.

The aroma is certainly a roasted espresso coffee along with dark chocolate. I’m reminded of those tiny chocolate covered coffee beans that a friend used to hand out while studying for law school exams (yeah, that’s right. We were hardcore back then). In fact, for the most proximate smell, go to the grocery. Select some dark coffee beans. Place them in the grinder and press start. Dump some Hershey’s chocolate syrup from aisle 7 into the machine. Lean over it and inhale. That’s what this beer is on the nose. Delicious and awakening. And as much as I try to, I can’t pull out any hops from the aroma. Only coffee and chocolate.

Flavor is big. This is an imperial, after all. Along the thick, oily, and rich texture a sweet malty chocolate and a smokiness persist through first, what I want to say is the “oaty” presence, quickly followed by second, the dark and dry malt flavors. Though the pungent Chinook does not immediately break through, the aftertaste is all bitterness adding the appropriate balance. While flavor is not completely uniform from start to finish, this beer was not meant to be too complex. The finish that lingers is all beer, but begs to be washed back with a glass of milk.

Now, we know that the particular coffee blend used for the stout is a “premium” blend of 1 to 2 South American and African bean selections, but what we don’t know is the precise caffeine amount, say in milligrams, that each 12 once bottle contains. Though considering that this Imperial is an imperial of 8%, there is substantially more Bake than there is Wake.

The Stats

ABV: 8.6% or 8.1% depending whether you ask the website or the bottle, respectively.

IBU: 50, which is the absolute high end of the typical stout bitterness range, fitting for an Imperial.

Hops: Chinook, Northern Brewer.