SkinnyShamrock's Outbound Oatmeal Stout

SkinnyShamrock's Outbound Oatmeal Stout- my first AG!

7 lbs. Munich
1 lb. Crystal 80L
1 lb. melanoidin malt
18 oz. (standard container) "Minute" oats
.5 lb. dark Munich
.5 lb. chocolate malt
.5 lb. roasted barley

Mash for 60 minutes at 154*

Start with roughly 6 gallons of wort, begin 60 minute boil
Add 1.25 oz. Willamette pellets (4.9%AA)
Add 1 teaspoon Irish moss at 15 minutes left
End boil, chill to 65*
Into 5 gallons of cool wort, pitch White Labs WLP001 or similar West Coast ale yeast (I actually pulled yeast from the bottom of a tank at work, but our house ale yeast is a West Coast-style ale yeast)

OG=1.054

Ferment for 7-10 days at 68* until reaching FG of 1.018, add priming sugar and bottle, condition for 10-14 days, enjoy beer

(Note...some of the stats may be slightly off, the recipe calculator I used doesn't know what melanoidin malt is)

Chocolat-y? That's it?

Come on man, give us more than that. How was the head, the mouthfeel, the taste? Were there any esters? If so, were they desirable or undesirable? Is it hoppy, malty, balanced? Does the willamette shine through, or is it masked by the malt?

The recipe looks pretty straight forward, but we need to know that you've really brewed and tasted this beer before we go trying it for ourselves.

The beer pours fairly well, the head has a deep chocolate color, and holds fairly well, though does not stay as stable as some commercial stouts. The aroma is mostly chocolate, though some of the hops come through. The flavor starts as pure chocolate, but very quickly the roasted takes center stage. It's not so present that it's annoying or disgusting, just enough. The finish is a little hops and that roasty flavor mixed. The overall flavor profile is mostly malt, the hops can only really be tasted in the finish.

There were no off-flavors that I can detect, though early in it's bottle conditioning, the last few sips in the glass will have a "hot" alcohol bite to them.

Hope that's good enough, I'm not a certified judge or anything...

Did it finish at 1.018 or did it end up higher than that?

Actually finished around 1.020.

It's been bottle-conditioning for well over a month now, and it tastes fantastic. The so-so head retention I was getting early in the aging has gotten slightly better, but it's still not as good as I would like.