Exploring the increasingly wild world of dessert stout
While dark beer as a whole remains in critical decline, there is one flickering light in the gloom of this languishing style. Desert Stout (sometimes referred to as pastry stout or sweet stout) has seen a resurgence in recent years, as craft brewers look to push the beer frontier into ever more outlandish territory.
With its flavours primarily driven by malt rather than hops, stout has an intrinsic weight and depth to its character that make it uniquely suited for unconventional flavourings. Known as adjuncts in the brewing world, these flavourings can consist of (almost) anything separate from the core constituents of grain, hops, yeast and water.
These additions started simple; lactose or cocoa for milk or chocolate stouts respectively (and often both at once), but as the ingredient arms race picked up, things got more extreme. Last year saw the release of an avocado stout, marking the point at which things had officially gotten weird. Nowadays you’ll find everything from cold brew coffee, marshmallow, or (just recently) even
red lamington.
As intrinsically diverse as these beers are, they typically share one common trait – extreme strength, often exceeding 10%ABV. All this extra malt provides the weight and richness necessary for a stout to stand up to these uniquely individual and often aggressive flavours without being completely dominated by them.
Between the huge alcohol and the plethora of fringe flavours, these beers are by their nature not going to be for everyone. Personally, as much as I like to explore the wilder side of beer, the sheer sweetness and richness factor in some examples can often exceed my tolerance. But when you hit upon one that really clicks with your individual palate then there’s no other beer in the world quite like it. Here’s a few choice examples, from the mild to the extreme…
CASSELS: Milk Stout 5.2%abv
Starting with one of the mildest examples on the market, and also the one that in large part vitalised the whole desert stout movement. Cassels Milk Stout won best in show in both the Stout & Porter and Milk Stout categories at the World Beer Awards in 2011, instantly making it one of most prestigiously awarded New Zealand beers internationally. Still brewed today and just as good as ever, it’s a great beginning for a journey into flavoured stouts.
8 WIRED: ‘iStout Affogato’ 10.0%abv
I previously mentioned that some of these beers exceeded my tolerance for sweets, and this is one of them. While I might not quite be able to handle the colossal richness, I have to respect the craft needed to create such a beer. Brewed with lactose, coffee and vanilla in addition to a vast malt base it really does inspire the desert of its namesake with haunting accuracy.
GARAGE PROJECT: ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ 11.2%abv
A self styled South Pacific take on export stout (the stronger 7.5% version of Guinness). Brewed with a huge array of island flavours, including breadfruit, roasted plantain, coconut sugar, toasted coconut and Tahitian vanilla. With so many rich ingredients in the mix, and a staggering 11.2%abv, one could expect this to be a sweetness overload. It’s rich for sure, but Mutiny is so precisely brewed and acutely balanced that it comes together superbly.
Tim Newman
hoppiness.co.nz
