Homebrewed: Honey Oat Stout

Dick and I recently made a Honey Oatmeal Stout. It was our first homebrew made with individually picked ingredients, as opposed to the pre-assembled boxes that we used for our first two beers (an Irish Red Ale and a Scotch Ale). We found the recipe online at the Beer Recipator (http://hbd.org/recipator/) which has tons of information and recipes for every skill-level homebrewer. The Honey Oat Stout can be found here (http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?group=16&item=6884). We bottled the beer two weeks ago, which is when it starts to carbonate itself inside the glass bottles. We drank a trial beer this weekend to see how it was progressing and the result was nearly delicious. Already the brew has a great mouthfeel, and a nice balance between all the sweet honey (4 lbs total) and the three varieties of hops that we added (Magnum, Challenger, and Argentina Cascade [Tettnanger was unavailable]). Give it another two weeks for this to be one tasty brew--and a potent one, too, weighing in at approximately 8.0% alcohol by volume.



While we were at Wine Craft Atlanta (our local homebrew supply store) we noticed a package of Thujone, aka Wormwood. This is the suppossedly psychoactive herb used to make Absinthe, and it can be used in beer, too. Unfortunately, I researched recipes and it seems to taste terrible in beer while offering none of the halucinogenic properties we'd be chasing after. I think I'll pass.