Redwood Oatmeal Stout
With the Thanksgiving holidays past, the winter season is well under way. While fall always brings its harvest of pumpkin beer (and this year I saw some new styles, with a sour and a dark pumpkin joining the crew ), the impending cold makes me eager for the darker beers of winter. And with IPAs and lighter beers continuing to grow in popularity, these full, heavy beers are getting harder to find. I’m thinking about stockpiling some for spring …
Born of Porter
Stouts have their roots in porters, which were first brewed in London the early 1700s. London’s water, with its limestone qualities, was particularly suited to the porter style. (The majority of water in the U.S. is also held in limestone aquifers.) Porters were popular with the London people (porters in particular), and brewers began brewing the beers in different ways to suit the growing demand. The higher gravity porters were called stouts—in reference to their strong taste and powerful effect—and so the term stout was born.
But not the beer.
While the details are lost to history, most folks agree that during the 18th and 19th centuries the term stout did not actually refer to different beers, but simply to the different strengths. British beer writer Martyn Cornell records a number of common names, including single stout, double stout, and extra stout. Cornell also mentions pale stouts: strong beers made with pale malts that eventually evolved into old ales, Burton ale and some barley wines.
Eventually, stout beer became a style of its own, but it had to wait for the U.S. brewers to really bring it into popular use—where the brew then evolved into its own distinct style—and styles..
Types of Stouts
The Beer Judge Style Guildeline
The new BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) Style guidelines have just been released—this is the first revision since 2008!—and they list seven specific different styles of stout. While this is by no means the only beer style guide available, I like the BJCP because it focuses on judging homebrews, which are where new beer styles come from.
(I’m looking forward to exploring these descriptions more deeply, because they are really well written and include interesting historical notes, but for now I’ll stick with stouts.)
- Irish Stout – A black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee. Mendocino’s Black Hawk Stout has a dry crispness that is a classic feature of this style.
- Sweet Stout – A very dark, sweet, full-bodied, slightly roasty ale that can suggest coffee-and-cream, or sweetened espresso. Milk Stouts fall into this category, and were once touted for their healthy, nutritious qualities.
- Oatmeal Stout – A very dark, full-bodied, roasty, malty ale with a complementary oatmeal flavor. Mendocino’s seasonal Redwood Oatmeal Stout, with its bold chocolate and coffee flavors, is one of my cold weather favorites. (And the new label adds a certain cheer.)
- Foreign Extra Stout – A very dark, moderately strong, fairly dry, stout with prominent roast flavors. Guinness is an excellent example, and comes with an interesting historical tidbit:
“Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (originally, West India Porter, later Foreign Extra Double Stout) was first brewed in 1801 according to Guinness with “extra hops to give it a distinctive taste and a longer shelf life in hot weather, this is brewed [today] in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. It[currently] makes up 40% of all the Guinness brewed around the world.”
- American Stout -A fairly strong, highly roasted, bitter dark stout with a more aggressive American hop character and bitterness.
- Imperial Stout – Roasty-burnt malt with deep dark or dried fruit flavors, and a warming, bittersweet finish. Again, Mendocino’s Imperial stout stands tall in this category, with its rich caramel and roasted malts and dark coffee tones.
- Tropical Stout – A very dark, sweet, fruity, moderately strong ale with smooth roasty flavors without a burnt harshness. According to the BJCP guide, this stout was originally brewed by people in tropical regions who used local sugars (like fruit sugars).
It’s Stout Hunting Season!
One of my plans for holiday gifting (for both myself and others) involves collecting some of these big winter beers while they’re here, and putting a few aside for enjoying later. Big beers make great year-round gifts, and they are an excellent dessert or end of the evening beer to share. If you have any favorite beers you seek out during the holidays, let us know in the comments below!