Oaked Belgian Imperial Wheat Stout: say that three times! Or just shorten it with “Allagash Odyssey Clone”.

Odyssey happens to be my favorite non-sour from Allagash. Essentially, it is a big stout, brewed with a healthy portion of wheat, fermented with belgian yeast, and aged in new American Oak barrels for some amount of time. I highly recommend trying this beer – my first taste of it precluded the recent belgiany-stout rash that seems to be going around, so it will always be special to me.

A few years back Rob Todd, owner of Allagash, was at a “Meet The Brewer” type event at the South Philadelphia Taproom. I kept gushing about how much I loved Odyssey, so after encouragement from my wife and prodding via text from Brett, I worked up the nerve to walk up to Mr Todd, tell him how much I loved Odyssey, and ask him how to brew it.

“I can’t tell you that, it’s secret! … Just kidding” he began with. He proceeded to give me an array of pointers which got me on the right track to brewing a similar beer. It was an awesome experience, and Rob Todd is a straight up awesome dude.