Kyle Nabilcy
To start: it’s not like I didn’t know there were stouts made to emulate Oreos. It’s a pretty obvious and common adjunct stout flavor profile, chocolate and vanilla. The Bourbon County releases of the 2018 Thanksgiving weekend included one with indecent amounts of chocolate and another with an almost unpleasant level of vanilla. Smoosh ‘em together, and that’s basically an Oreo.
But there’s something special about the flavor of an Oreo. It’s not just the flavors of chocolate and vanilla; it’s a cookie that’s chocolate- and vanilla-flavored, y’know? Like how the government says you have to call something “chocolatey” if it doesn’t contain a certain minimum percentage of cocoa butter or whatever. That simulation of real bakery flavors, that’s what makes an Oreo an Oreo.
If it seems like I’m waxing rhapsodic on a quotidien and un-artisanal grocery store item, you’re not wrong. But maybe you’re new here. In that case, Hi. I’m Kyle, and I’m unhealthily fascinated with Oreos and Oreo variants. I’m not necessarily saying Oreos are a core part of my identity, but I am saying that for as long as I’ve been using computers, Windows spellcheck (and later Google) has routinely tried to replace my last name with “Nabisco.” So there’s that.
Anyway, like I said, it’s not like I didn’t know there were Oreo stouts. But I didn’t know there was going to be a packaged Oreo stout. It’s not the kind of thing to which Oreo’s parent company, Mondelez, would typically give its imprimatur. It’s the kind of beer a brewery would do as a taproom or event one-off, like The Bruery did with its Pure Oreo Black Tuesday variant back in 2014. You run it through a Randall infusion kit; you don’t run it by TTB for label approval.
But if there’s a brewery that’s going to do just that, it’s probably Prairie Artisan Ales. Prairie, the Tulsa brewery that submitted a label for its Twist dry-hopped farmhouse ale featuring a picture of Shaquille O’Neal standing behind Dr. Ruth Westheimer, adjacent to a man in a very detailed Shrek costume. (The final label as it hit shelves looked nothing like the approved specs.) Prairie, the maker of seemingly infinite variations of adjunct stouts like Bomb and Noir.
Prairie, the brewer of what has to be the Most Nabilcy Beer Ever, Double Dunk — “Imperial Stout with Oreo.”
Now, I’m no lawyer. I can’t say if it’s kosher with Mondelez that Prairie used the word “Oreo” on the label. I don’t know if it has anything to do with not putting an S at the end, although there are dozens of live trademarks on the word “Oreo” with no S at the end. What I do know is that Prairie posted a picture to its Instagram timeline back in August that showed stacks on stacks of cases of Oreos with the caption, “October.” This is a packaged and distributed stout with actual Oreos in it, and Prairie isn’t hiding it.
I don’t think I’m burying the lede in saying that duh, of course I brought some home shortly after it hit shelves. But I didn’t get around to opening one until the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend. A lot of desserts meet their end around this time of year, so it seemed logical.
The first impression of Double Dunk was that the body of this beer was pastry stout legit, oily thick and rich. The second impression was that the 11.9% alcohol by volume was not shy; it sips more than a little hot. And the third impression was that holy cow, this was actually a competently-made imperial stout that just happened to have a bunch of Oreos thrown into it. It’s a very sweet beer, but also a beer that I wouldn’t mind finishing a full pour of. That’s more than I can say for a lot of Prairie’s Bomb releases.
And as it warmed, would you believe the component Oreo flavors actually emerged, just a little? Some vanilla-flavored creme on the nose, and a cocoa/graham cracker kind of biscuity sweetness on the palate.The Most Nabilcy Beer Ever, and it was everything I could have asked for. Except there’s a barrel-aged version….
