Time to taste our latest batch of Stouts. We brewed a whole set of beers in early March: one Sahti, three Fruited Sour Ales ja three Roasted Stouts. I have already reviewed the Sahti (Kärsimyssahti) and Sour Ales (Raspberry Vitamin, Tropical Vitamin and Mango Vitamin Tweaked) here earlier. Now the time has come to crack open the first Stout. Or actually two of them because I will do a side-by-side review of our homebrews for the first time. The two beers are both Roasted Stouts. One is a standard version whereas the other has been "flavored" with American heavy toast oak chips. We brewed the beers seven weeks ago and bottled these both five weeks ago. They should be ready for drinking although being fairly young, of course. I don't intend to do a second review later as I don't anticipate much development over time. Both beers pour opaque, brilliant black. Carbonation is successful, with the standard edition having a taller head though. The heads of the both beers are fawn, moussy. Retention is substantially long. The standard version brags about a fluffier lace ring than the oaked version. The scent is very restrained in both. Hmmm... 🤔 I can come back to this later since the beers are still fairly chilled. In any case, what I find now include dark malt, licorice and ... a roasted note. Hell yes, no big deal, they are both Roasted Stouts, right? The oak chips don't give any faintest nuance to the fragrance, at least not yet. Let me kiss them both. Dark malt, roasted rye, a coffeeish hint and a hoppy slam. The hoppy aroma can be broken down into bitter grapefruit peel and distant blackcurrant leaf. This is for both. I'm trying hard to find even a most insignificant difference between the two but it's extremely difficult. [I'm sipping from one glass, then from another. I repeat. I repeat again. Still again. Etc. ... until I have finished half of both bottles. Then, finally...] Oh, wait a second!! Am I getting a silent sigh of raw cacao powder in the oak version? Yes! That's it! And actually even more distant blackcurrant leaf. Or maybe the leaf just disappears swiftly. I'm perplexed. I expected something woody, oaky, maybe burned as a result of the oak chips. Instead, I find raw cacao powder. Now that I concentrate especially on the cacao, I can detect it also in the scent. Still, how on earth is cacao linked to oak? The body of both beers is light to light-medium. Not bad for 5.7 %. The finish gears in a hoppier direction; I pick grapefruit peel, light-piney hops and a bitter coffeeish wisp. I can't distinguish between the two beers as to the end — fully identical. The aftertaste gets roasted fiercely, and the tastebuds tinkle in their pants while rolling on the floor, laughing, for quite a long time. The mouthfeel is lightish, faintly roasty, relatively smooth and a bit frothy. The finish offers additionally crisp and slightly piney characteristics. Basically, quite tasty. Actually better than I expected. Nevertheless, the soaked oak chips didn't render anything I anticipated but something else instead. All in all, the difference is almost barely recognizeable. Hence, —0.1 stars for making it too difficult to identify the difference but +0.1 stars for the additional hint of cacao = the same score. PS. There's also a third version of the Roasted Stout but it's so different that I'll review it separately at a later point of time.