There has been this trend to de-seasonalize stouts, and I think that’s for a variety of reasons. Right off the bat, if you think about the flavor profile, it’s actually very refreshing. Serve it cold, and there’s chocolate and coffee, and—on nitro or not—there’s generally a smoothness to the style that is really appropriate any time of year.
It makes sense. Think about coffee and how people have embraced iced coffee and cold brew, which are perfectly refreshing in the heat of the summer. A stout does the same thing.
If you like the roasted notes of coffee, dark chocolate, mocha, and espresso, you’re going to like it year-round and appreciate it year-round. It’s a refreshing experience. People who love those flavors love them despite the time of year. It’s great on the patio; it’s great inside on a cold day.
We created a beer and called it a blonde stout. It’s basically a blonde ale with an infusion of flavor notes that you’d find in stouts. So it’s been cold aged on cacao nibs and coffee from our local, fair-trade, organic roaster, Bridgehead. We added lactose to increase the perception of fullness in the beer; it helps to deliver the impression of indulgence. It’s not a traditional stout, but we chose to call it that because of the flavor profile and because it challenges the notion of what a stout can be. We serve it on regular CO2, but it would be really great on nitro, for sure.
If you’re reading a description of a beer and you know about the stout profile, you can take a step back from the visual point of view. I think we’re such visual creatures and have these expectations on appearance that it’s a nice surprise that a beer like this can have these roasty, intense flavors without the color that you always associate with a stout. It breaks down the biases and prejudgment when it comes to color and flavor.
Stouts also make great sense for a lot of foods—not just cold-weather food, but summer grilled meats where the char matches the roasty flavors of the beer. You can do stouts with salads or a tiramisu with mascarpone cheese. It’s versatile and not season based.
Stout has become, in some minds, associated with one holiday or season, but it’s always been an everyman kind of beer and has always had a broad appeal. There’s an impression with a traditional stout that even if it were low ABV, it would have a lot of substance to it, more than some other styles. It’s gives this impression of being nourishing (think of milk stout or oatmeal stout), and as a dark beer, it seems to have this therapeutic quality.
Because of its depth, I don’t think we need to think of stout as one-season only. And that’s really not how people drink anymore. If you want an IPA in the middle of winter, you’re going to have it even though it has a summery citrus burst.
It comes down to drinking what you want, when you want. It’s not about the style; it’s about the content of your experience—where you are, what you’re eating—and not being confined by seasonal boundaries anymore.
Photo: Matt Graves/www.mgravesphoto.com