Lately, I’ve had raw oysters on the brain.

Being that I live here in Lower Alabama and the month ends in an R, I can’t imagine that comes as too much of a surprise to many people, but the thing is, I don’t really like oysters. I’ve tried them countless times, often hiding the bivalves beneath a blanket of cocktail sauce and atop the hard bed of a saltine, but I always end up slogging each one down as fast as possible.

Each time, I wonder along the way if I’m just defeating the purpose.

But when I read in Garrett Oliver’s "The Brewmaster’s Table" about the classic beer pairing of raw oysters and dry Irish stout, it got me thinking: If Oliver lavishes such praise on the combination — "... there seems to be a primal connection between them," he writes. "The flavor of the oyster is magically magnified and fills the senses." — I might just be inspired to give raw oysters another shot.

As long as beer is involved.

So I sidled up to the bar at Wintzell’s Oyster House downtown, only to be reminded that Mobile may be an oyster town, but it’s not quite a beer town. Despite what Oliver calls a "centuries-old combination of beer and food," there wasn’t a single stout among Wintzell’s selection. Or at the Original Oyster House, for that matter.

Needless to say, I walked away disappointed, but I wasn’t mad; it’s likely the folks at our oyster joints hadn’t ever heard about the pairing or thought about putting an Irish stout, such as Guinness, on the beer menu.

But that can change, and you can help. The next time you go and get a raw dozen, ask your server for a Guinness. If they don’t have it yet, asking for it will let them know that they should.

If you still want to scratch the oyster/stout itch, seek out Abita's latest Select offering, an Imperial Louisiana Oyster Stout, which is just now hitting taps at better beer bars in Lower Alabama.

It’s brewed using whole Louisiana oysters in the boil, an addition that leaves only the slightest hints of the sea in the black-as-night stout. Instead, chocolate and roast dominate the flavor and aroma of the thick, viscous imperial brew.

There’s no perceptible oyster flavor, but there is something different to this beer — a drier finish; a silky, almost oily texture — thanks to the addition of oysters. Ask for it in a snifter glass and allow it to warm up a bit, letting the complex flavors of the 8-percent-ABV stout shine through.

Abita’s Select beers are served only on draught and only for a limited time, so get this one while you can.

Also here for a short time is one of my favorite styles of the year, the wet-hop IPA. Each year, when hop harvest season arrives in September, many breweries will have fresh, whole hops shipped overnight from hop farm to brewery, often within 24 hours of being picked.

While most year-round beers employ dried, vacuum-sealed hop pellets, the use of wet whole-cone hops, which are added as soon as possible after arriving at the brewery, provides a uniquely intense hop flavor and aroma to the beer, which can only be made once a year.

Since the passage of the Gourmet Beer Bill in 2009, a few of these wet-hop beers have snuck into the tap lines at various Mobile watering holes, including the OK Bicycle Shop, where I recently found Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale Ale.

As I’d expect from a beer that uses wet hops, Fresh Hop is bursting with the aroma of fresh-cut grass and citrus, but it is not overly bitter, allowing the intricate flavors from the fresh Centennial, Cascade and Simcoe hop cones to dominate this American Pale Ale.

Wet-hop beers are intended to be consumed as fresh as possible, so if you see Fresh Hop on tap, don’t dawdle or you might miss out on one of the season’s great beers.

Online Extras

Check out these episodes of BrewingTV to see how oyster stout and wet-hop IPAs are made.

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Dan Murphy is a page designer and resident beer guy at the Press-Register. He can be reached at dmurphy@press-register.com, on Twitter and on Facebook.