Oatmeal

Brewed since 1988, when Rogue Brewery got its start in Ashland, Oregon—home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for the OG of American oatmeal stouts.

In this edition of Make Your Best: Ask the Pros, Josh Weikert investigates the inner workings of Rogue’s iconic Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout.

The style allows for creativity, which means that you can choose to dress up whichever part of the profile you prefer, making the beer sweeter, more bitter, less roasty, or more “oaty,” as you like it.

Whether you’re using fresh oysters, oyster shells, or powdered oysters, the perfect oyster stout offers a balance between roast and brine.

Here’s the recipe for what would later be scaled up to become Dark Star, which would then become Rusty Nail, from Fremont Brewing in Seattle, Washington.

You’ll want to hoard this darker-than-dark oatmeal stout with a bit of sweet, a bit of roast, and a bit of cinnamon and gooey molasses all for yourself.