Opinion: Michael Donaldson

Michael Donaldson

Beer Writer of the Year, journalist and author beernation.co.nz

Sweet inspiration

Forget traditional desserts – Michael Donaldson finds that more and more Kiwi breweries are experimenting with beers that strike a sweet note…

GARAGE PROJECT are often ahead of the curve in terms of beer styles. This winter, they released a beer that included nine types of malted barley, oats, rye, pretzels, potato chips, rice crispies, marshmallows, tea leaves, raisins, toasted coconut, vanilla, hazelnut, coffee and cacao nibs. Yep, you read that right. They called it Garbage Stout. It was the ultimate taking-the-mickey beer; mocking while embracing the rising popularity of dessert beers, or pastry stouts. These beers have been all the rage for a while in Britain and the US. Usually, they’re stouts and porters laden with some of the ingredients listed above or with the likes of maple syrup, peanut butter, berries and lactose for a creamy texture. Basically, anything you’d associate with breakfast, dessert – or even afternoon tea – is fair game. Purists can’t stand these types of beers, the main argument being that behind all the adjuncts there might be a real beer hiding but you can’t tell for sure. And others will claim all those flavour additions can cover a multitude of brewing sins. The beauty of these outrageous beers – despite what purists might think – is that they are delicious and people love them. Watch any child with food and it’s clear that you don’t have to live long on this planet before learning what you like, and humans have a definite preference for sweet.

Beer, however, hasn’t appealed to this default setting traditionally, and the early days of the craft revolution were all about pushing the bitterness boundary instead. When it comes to stouts, many people’s early experience is defined by Guinness, with its roasted, charry, almost acrid character. The acidity and char of traditional stouts were, historically, by-products of the way dark malts were roasted in a kiln. But there’s no reason other than tradition (and competition guidelines) that a stout must continue to have that ash factor that puts so many people off. In short, for a long time, beer cold-shouldered a large segment of the market who were deterred by the bitter or charred character of beer.

Recently, we’ve seen the move towards the sweet end of the spectrum with beers such as hazy IPA, with its accent on tropical fruit-flavoured hops and “soft” bitterness. Now stouts and porters (and sours too, as we’ll discover) are swerving towards the sugary end of the flavour scale. These beers are reaching a new audience and taking them on a sweet craft beer journey. Normally, at this juncture a beer writer would say something like: “Balance is still important” or “You shouldn’t overdo these adjuncts”. But as Garage Project proved with Garbage Stout, there are no parameters to these rule-breaking beers. In fact, Garage Project followed that wild beer with Surrender to the Void, which they describe as “an irregular series of outrageously decadent pitch black stouts”. The first in the series is a cinnamon banoffee pie stout that clocks in at 11.5% ABV. Behemoth is another brewery that doesn’t mind adjunct-heavy beers. They’ve just re-released their 2018 Beervana hit Snow Mexican – a maple syrup imperial stout – as well as Bogan’s Breakfast, which is a bourbon barrelaged maple syrup cold brew coffee imperial stout. Duncan’s in Paraparaumu have also gambled and won on dessert-style beers. Where they shine is with what they call “ice cream sours”. They add lactose and fruit to a just-sour base beer for a deliciously creamy concoction. Out now is Blueberry Ripple, an imperial ice cream sour. Many other breweries will do seasonal releases in this area, but 8-Wired produce their Affogato iStout all year round (and it does just what it says) while Kereru regularly produces the award-winning Imperial Nibs, a cacao, vanilla and coconut porter. The bottom line with all these beers is that I’ve yet to find someone who doesn’t like them – even people who tell me they don’t like beer.