17Mar/120
Happy St. Patrick’s Day: A Toast to the Stout
Posted by Dusten
St. Patrick’s day is upon us and I would like to celebrate by giving a shout out to the Irish Stout. Though not born in Ireland, popular brands like Guinness and Murphy’s have branded the stout as Irish in many minds. This dark roasty beer will be downed in excess today whether alone or with it’s cousin (distant and twice removed) the Irish Cream Liqueur (Bailey’s, St. Brendan’s) in an Irish Car Bomb.
Origins
The stout originated with the porter in London in the early to mid 1700’s. The term “stout” was used as an adjective meaning strong. Stout was used to describe any style of beer being a strong beer. It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that the term stout for the beer we know today became a popular term commercially.
Early versions were made prior to the introduction of pale malt which was invented in 1817 which would have given it a more brown than black look. Due to taxation on grains, a lot of brewers used burnt sugar or burnt molasses instead of brown or patent malt (when it became available). Once patent malt became popular the malt bill for the stout changed from mostly brown malt to mostly light malt and small percentage of patent malt. The patent gives the stout the burnt, roasty character typified by the stout.
For some 150 years the stout/porter reigned as the king of beers. However, eventually the pale ale and then the pilzner took over. Today many varieties of the stout exist: Dry Stout, Sweet Stout, Oatmeal Stout, Foreign Extra Stout, American Stout, Russian Imperial Stout with variations only limited by the imagination of the brewers.
