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Mile High Drafts: Avocado Toast

Avocado Toast Oskar Blues, Longmont, Colorado Style: Gluten Free Amber Ale ABV: 4.6% IBU: unknown Overall Rating: 2/5 This week, Mile High Drafts has me hanging out at The Tasty Weasel sampling some beer by Oskar Blues.
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Oskar Blues’ Avocado Toast. (Sabrina Ehlert/Longmont Observer)

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Avocado Toast

Oskar Blues, Longmont, Colorado

Style: Gluten Free Amber Ale

ABV: 4.6%    IBU: unknown

Overall Rating: 2/5

This week, Mile High Drafts has me hanging out at The Tasty Weasel sampling some beer by Oskar Blues. Initially, I’d heard that Oskar Blues had released a pumpkin ale, which had me really excited at the prospect of trying it, but when I inspected their tap list of specialty beers there was nary a pumpkin in sight.

Apparently, there’s been a rumor going around that OB has released a pumpkin beer and it’s totally false. If you're a pumpkin ale fan like I am, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

After being terribly disappointed at not being able to try a pumpkin beer, I moved on to plan B and asked if they’d released any of the beers going to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) this year. Alas, foiled again! No GABF previews at The Tasty Weasel, Oskar Blues will not be releasing any GABF beers in their taprooms until the week of GABF.

Being 0 for 2 in beer I was really wanting to try, I scanned the specialty menu for something that looked new and interesting, the Avocado Toast caught my attention. Now for the record, I am not gluten free and I tend to view gluten free beers as sort of an oxymoron, but I appreciated the sense of humor in naming a gluten free beer after a popular, thoroughly hipster food trend— I was assured that neither avocados or toast were used in the making of this beer.

The color of Avocado Toast was a hazy, dull brown with amber highlights with a thin off-white head. The aroma had nutty, malty notes but was otherwise unremarkable. The flavor was also unimpressive, very muddled. As an amber ale, it was malt forward, I think it tried to incorporate some fruity, citrus esters but that came out more in a bitter, pithy off-flavor. Over all I found Avocado Toast to be a bland and unexciting beer.

There is a silver lining…

I don’t see the popularity of gluten free foods going away anytime soon, and I think that local craft breweries are starting to realize that they need to have more gluten free or gluten reduced options to stay competitive. I got the sense that Oskar Blues really tried to create a flavorful gluten free beer. For me there was something in the execution of Avocado Toast that missed the mark, however, it was one of the better gluten free beers I’ve tried. I applaud the attempt and would like to see Oskar Blues continue to work and play with more gluten free beers.

If you have a favorite beer or brewery you’d like me to try, leave a comment or send an email, [email protected], and I’ll be sure to check it out.

Until next week…

Sláinte!