Beer Matters

BY JAMIE DOOM

WINTERS IN THE SANDHILLS are cold and rainy interspersed with warmth and sun. If you don’t like the weather, just wait, because it will probably be changing soon. But the shorter days and longer nights are perfect for one beer no matter the temperature outside: Stout! So whether you are grilling on the back porch or huddled up under a blanket near a bonfire, let’s raise a mug of this dark smooth drink in celebration of its rich historical tradition.

The history of the stout begins in England in the 1700s with a simply named brown beer. The new and exciting pale ale had become the trend in London, and other breweries wanted to produce a competitor. So brewers started making a decently hopped brown beer that required longer fermentation times. The beer was placed in wooden barrels for months to mature and let this hoppier beer mellow out. What emerged was a more calorie-rich and carbohydrate-laden concoction that was popular among the men who took the heavy freight from the ships in the harbor and transported it all over town. The beer was so associated with this particular industry that, as early as 1721, it took on the name of its most avid drinker, the porter.

In 1859, an Irishman by the name of Arthur Guinness took over an unused brewery at Dublin’s St. James’s Gate. In the early days, he brewed the popular British porter, but a stronger version was sometimes called a stout. In 1817, a man named Daniel Wheeler invented the roasting kiln for making black malt, and this changed the porter forever. In 1821, Arthur Guinness II was able to take the

more efficient pale malts and mix them with the dark roasted barley to create a patent malt. This created a beer that was more toasty and more dry than traditional brown malts.

The Dry Irish Stout is a paradox in a glass. Despite its deep, oil-like color it’s actually light bodied. Its bitterness is more rich and pleasing, like the bitterness of coffee. The rise of Guinness was synonymous with the rise of the stout.

Brewers then begin to experiment and figure out how to add complexity or more smoothness to the roasted dark beer, and the milk stout was invented simply by blending a dark stout porter with milk. It was often served at lunchtime to help laborers get through the rest of the day. This beer rose to greater prominence in the early 1900s when it was advertised as a tonic to nursing mothers. Most milk stouts today are still made with lactose and it still remains a sweeter version of the stout.

This beer is probably one of the most aptly and descriptively named beers around. Instead of lactose, oats are added, which creates a silky-smooth and creamy mouthfeel without the sweetness. The creaminess of the oats still manages to mellow out the dark toasty malts. This beer grew in popularity in Northern England and Scotland (where oats abound) in the early 20th century, but after World War II it began to wane in popularity and no brewery in the world was brewing it when Samuel Smith from England revived it again in 1980. Today, you can find oatmeal stout everywhere.

The foreign export stout was made for markets outside of the British Isles, and to survive the journey it was made stronger (7.5% or higher alcohol content) and hopped more aggressively. This beer has a strong coffee bite. It’s intense yet smooth. The Russian imperial stout is its final form: big, bold and bitter!

The rise of craft beer in the United States has been marked by American craft brewers taking two traditional English styles, the IPA and the stout, and turning them into something completely unrecognizable and wonderful. Today’s imperial stout is a completely American phenomenon. We’ve taken the stout and turned it up to 11, even 14.9%. By playing with the balance between bitter dark roasts, coffee, chocolate, toffee and a million other adjuncts, craft brewers today are forging a wide path in the world of beer. These beers are rich, thick and boozy, and can take the place of a port or digestif after dinner.

This time of year all your favorite bottle shops and local breweries will have more stouts and porters than at any other time. Take advantage of it now because longer days of spring are on the way! (Information for this article came from Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher and The Complete Beer Course by Joshua M. Bernstein.) SP

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