Renowned architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a fan of the saying, “God is in the details.” While he didn’t originate the phrase, and he wasn’t talking about beer, he really might as well have been. What makes a beautiful building is a lot more than the right number of walls, some windows, and some ornamentation; and what makes a great beer is a lot more than the right number of IBUs and the use of certain malts. While it’s true that, once upon a time, beer sort of made itself, we’re a long time past that. If you want to make drinkable beer, you can follow a set of rote instructions. You might even make very good drinkable beer with that method. But if you want to make great beer, then you need to actively—even aggressively—drive the process and fine-tune it.
That sentiment is probably most true for stouts. There’s not much in the beer world to match the intensity and complexity of stouts, as a category. You’ll find warming alcohol, full mouthfeel, traditional ingredients that add intense flavors, and more. You’ll also find session beers, alternative ingredients such as coffee, and a wide variety of methods and techniques. As a result of this challenging combination of intensity and variety, it’s in our best interests as brewers to consider the component elements of stouts, their recipes, and specific methods if we’re going to make them well. We’ll be taking a tour through three stout-centric areas—balance, mouthfeel, flavor profile (roast and acidity, in particular)—and then wrapping up with a general discussion of recipe considerations to help you get as much out of your stouts as possible. God may or may not be in the details—but great stout definitely is.
Balance
To put it mildly, there’s a lot going on in stouts. Our first goal in fine-tuning should be to ensure that we’re creating a beer that we actually enjoy drinking, and for that we need to turn our attention to balance. When it comes to sweetness, we have two choices: eliminate it as much as possible, and/or counter it with other flavors. If we don’t, we run the risk of producing something that tastes like a dessert beer—which might have its place, but certainly isn’t the goal in most cases.
Sweetness is an unavoidable (and often desirable) component in beer. Alcohol is sweet, and in stouts we could be looking at double-digit ABVs. Sugars remain in beer even after fermentation. Those two features alone mean that we have work to do in balancing the actual sweetness in the beer—but it’s worse than that!
Caramel malts impart flavors that are often interpreted by the brain as “sweet,” even when they may not necessarily add any actual sweetness. Likewise, esters can create an impression of sweetness, and many stouts rely on esters to add complexity (picture the Tropical or Export Stout, for example). Between actual and perceived sweetness, there’s the very real risk that we produce something that’s cloying or candy-like.
Let’s also remember, though, that we’re making beer that (as we’ll see a bit later) requires balancing sweetness. Roast, acidity, and astringency all benefit from (and usually require) touches of sweet flavor to make them acceptable. And when we consider the potential intensity of these flavors, we have no choice but to actively manage the balance in our stout.
Starting on what I consider the “easy” side, let’s discuss adding sweetness to beer. We can do this simply by increasing original gravity, though obviously, there’s an upper limit to that tactic. Another tool at our disposal is an ingredient that actually created its own sub-style of stout: lactose. Though it might be most famous for its contribution to Milk Stout (or, as it’s commonly known Sweet Stout), lactose can be used in any stout to increase its level of sweetness and body because lactose is completely unfermentable by our cultivated strains of beer yeast, so it remains perfectly intact in finished beer. Matt Dunn, director of brewing and quality at Southern Tier Brewing Co. in New York (a brewery that really knows its way around a strong stout—check out 2XSTOUT or their Crème Brulee Stout), says that the flavor and mouthfeel contributions lactose adds are unique and perfectly pair with the roast and chocolate flavors we find in stouts. There are other methods of bulking up stouts, of course, but this one is both simple (add with about ten minutes left in the boil) and contributes wonderfully complementary elements in stout, in particular.
From the other side of the equation, how do we balance sweetness in stout? Here, too, we have ingredients that can be tweaked and throttled to get exactly the right balance we want. An overly sweet stout might simply have too much alcohol: consider reducing the original gravity. We can also adjust the flavor intensity of the things that are already present in stouts, notably the roast and bittering levels. We can adjust not only the percentage of roast malts present in the grist (with more of it acting as a balance to sweetness) but also the level of roast on the grains we use. Higher Lovibond levels correlate to more intense roastiness (even adding acrid or burnt notes to the beer), which will also offset sweet flavors while adding their own.
And, of course, we shouldn’t neglect the traditional brewers’ tool of hops bittering. This is a tool that we should use with a conscientious touch, however. Christian Mosebach, a brewer at Weyerbacher Brewing Co. in Easton, Pennsylvania (one of the premier strong ale breweries in the world—try Sunday Morning or Heresy, and you may never want to stop) notes that while increased bitterness is certainly a way to balance sweetness, we need to be careful because the hops aren’t the only thing adding bitter or bitter-like flavors to the beer. Just as we need to be aware of perceptions of sweetness, we need to be aware of perceptions of bitterness or tightness in the beer: malt-derived astringency, bitterness, and acidity can combine with hops bitterness to make for an unpleasant drinking experience.
Consider balance in your recipes more conscientiously when making stouts: all beers require balance, but given the flavor intensity and size of stouts, this is much more of a high-wire act.
Mouthfeel
In the world of stouts, mouthfeel (the tactile experience of a beer) deserves its own set of considerations. At least three elements of mouthfeel are key contributors for most stouts: body, astringency, and texture. Carbonation matters, but no more or less than in other beers. These other three, though, are prominently on our radar screen if the goal is a great stout.
Jeremy Myers, co-owner and head brewer at the multiple-GABF-medal-winning Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company (Croydon, Pennsylvania), notes that what makes a great stout is “mouthfeel, mouthfeel, mouthfeel,” especially one characterized by a hearty and luscious body. How do you get it? Well, something like our previously discussed lactose addition might help, but what if you’re not looking to add sweetness? Myers and others note that mashing your grains at a higher temperature—around 155°F (68°C)—is one common tactic, if you’re comfortable mashing that high. It will create more long-chain, unfermentable sugars that bulk up body but add little to no sweetness. If you’re not an all-grain brewer and/or you mash at a lower temperature, you can also increase body by steeping crystal malts before the boil or adding maltodextrin powder to your beer.
We also want to minimize astringency. Chocolate malts (those kilned to higher than 200L) and black malts (those at the highest Lovibond levels, 500L or higher) add astringency, or a sense of “tightening” in the mouth, due to the intense roasting of their grain husks. Some degree of this is desirable in stouts, but too much will greatly detract from the experience. If you find your stouts are too astringent, Southern Tier’s Dunn recommends that you consider replacing some portion of your highly kilned malts with debittered or dehusked malts, which offer the same dark colors but only a fraction of the roast intensity and much less astringency.
At the same time, many great stouts counteract tight, astringent textures by adding smoother, softer textures in contrast. Brewers such as Dunn and Myers accomplish this by adding grains such as flaked barley or oats to the grist (in Dunn’s case, he recommends as much as one third of the specialty grist be made up of flaked barley). These grains do more than just smooth out and soften the mouthfeel: they also are great contributors to head retention and, in the case of oats, a pleasant raw-grain flavor.
Much more so in stouts than in other styles, we feel our beer as well as taste it.
Flavor Profile
We definitely do taste our beer, too, though! The flavor that we most associate with stout is roast (coffee, chocolate), but it’s hardly the only one. We should also consider another common stout flavor, especially since it’s one that we assiduously avoid in most other beers: acidity.
Roast is king here, though. Traditionally, stouts derive their roast from the dark kilning found in roasted barley and other chocolate malts, but that’s hardly the only source we can use. Anything that’s kilned can add roast flavors, and you shouldn’t limit yourself to only the dark end of the specialty grains aisle. Since the flavors themselves tend to be described in the context of coffee and chocolate, you can certainly consider two common alternative ingredients to get those flavors: coffee and chocolate (see “Add Coffee and Chocolate for Roasty Goodness,” below).
Finally, let’s talk acidity. An overly acidic beer will do more than exhibit sharp or tart flavors: it can affect flavor, for certain, but it can also impact yeast performance, color, hops utilization, and more. John Stemler, brewmaster and co-owner at Free Will Brewing in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, recommends a water chemistry check to keep pH and acidity under control: Make sure there is sufficient alkalinity/buffering in your brewing water to balance the acidity of roasted grains, and (since it will drive the pH in the mash) don’t go overboard on black malt additions. Measure your mash and wort pH, and if you’re getting numbers much above/below 5.3, it’s time to call in a chemist for advice. If, on the other hand, you want some acidity and zip in the finished beer, one way to get it (that doesn’t run the risk of creating an aggressively acrid beer) is to include in your base grist a small dose (1–2 percent) of acidulated malt, which will add a bit of lactic acid directly to the beer. Problem solved.
Take Dead Aim
There are beers that don’t require a lot of specifics. Once a year I make what I guess you could call a Red IPA: I basically start with an amber wort and then chuck into it all of my leftover, remainder-of-other-recipes flavor and aroma hops, and ferment it all with German Ale yeast. It turns out beautifully, and my holiday party guests love it. It’s called “Kitchen Sink IPA.” Stouts aren’t like that. They require you to take dead aim (in the immortal words of American golf pro Harvey Penick) if you hope to get the beer you’re dreaming of.
First, consider which base stout you’re looking to make. Stouts are a diverse family of beers, which is one reason the precise definition of “stout” is so hard to nail down. It includes everything from the dry and sessionable Irish Stout to the sweet and fruity Tropical Stout to the intense Russian Imperial. If you don’t start with a target in mind, it can be hard to produce the beer you want. These can be unforgiving flavors.
Second, be aggressive. This is a beer that, even in its lighter incarnations, is pretty assertive in its flavor profile. Adding subtle flavors could end up being a waste of time: If you’re putting it into the recipe, let it make an impression. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to go overboard with some flavors (a friend’s peppermint oatmeal stout still haunts my dreams—I wake up with the smell of mint in my nose), but these beers do require you to account for competing flavors in a way that Pilsners, brown ales, and even IPAs don’t.
Last, don’t be afraid to push your (and others’) limits when it comes to stout. Those big flavors add a significant advantage: They give you an opportunity to really make an impression on the people who drink your beer. They give you the opportunity to make a big negative impression, too, but that’s okay—explore, experiment, and swing for the fences. Go big or go home. Or, as Napoleon liked to say (hey, we started with an architect, why not end with an emperor?): “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
Add Coffee and Chocolate for Roasty Goodness
Coffee is more and more becoming a staple in many of the great commercial stouts (though many craft-brewing pioneers such as Dogfish Head (Milton, Delaware) have been using it for quite a while). Using it properly means making good choices.
First, select a coffee that already has flavors you want—and avoids the flavors you don’t want. Just as roasted grains come in a wide array of flavors and roast levels, so, too, do coffee beans. Most breweries prefer lighter-kilned (or “blonde roast”) earthier varieties of the Arabica bean. The more-intense “Robusta” or the darker-kilned French-roast varieties add intense flavor, but they also carry with them things that we want to avoid (especially astringency and bittering); higher kilning can also yield beans that are more oily, and those oils can be killers when it comes to head retention.
Once you have a coffee you like (and don’t be afraid to experiment—there’s a wide world of beans out there, and craft/local roasters can bring all kinds of flavors out of them), there is a wide range of options to get those flavors into your beer.
The method that affords the most control and best flavor, in my mind, is cold steeping (or cold brewing, if you prefer). Take your ground beans (or even crushed/whole, as long as you use the same method every time, so that recipe adjustments are consistent) and steep them in cold water for 24–48 hours (to taste, really—but this is the usual time window). Use only as much water as it takes to cover the coffee plus maybe a bit more; using more runs the risk of watering down the beer, when all we want is the coffee flavor. Then, after cold steeping, just filter the liquid thoroughly (I pass mine through a muslin hops bag, which seems to do the trick), toss the grounds, and add the liquid to the beer. The amount of coffee added is done to taste, but in most cases you’ll find a level/intensity that works for your beers. There are other methods—dropping whole or crushed beans directly into the boil, creating an alcohol tincture of coffee that’s added to the finished beer, coffee in the mash—but adding cold steeped coffee is the most risk- and error-free.
As for timing, the best option is post-fermentation, just before bottling. That way, you know exactly what the finished beer tastes like, minus carbonation, which won’t affect the coffee flavor much (and which you can adjust for in subsequent batches).
Chocolate, likewise, can be added directly to the beer, and just like coffee, it is a tool that can contribute precise and specific flavors when used effectively. Annie Johnson, 2013 AHA Homebrewer of the Year and a brewer at Bluebird Brewing in Seattle, Washington, recommends cocoa nibs—essentially, crushed cacao that is either raw or roasted. It’s possible to really dial in these flavors, too: raw nibs added at the end of fermentation will add a soft and subtle chocolate flavor, whereas roasted nibs added in the boil or mash will extract intense cocoa character. The choice is yours!