Welcome to March. With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, I have been reading all about stouts. In English Pubs, there has been a shortage of Guinness Irish Stout. It seems that millennials have discovered Guinness Irish Stout and are drinking it in large volume – emptying kegs in some pubs. It does not appear that there is a shortage of Guinness in the U.S., but what are the alternatives for your St. Patrick’s Day party if you cannot find Guinness?
Irish Stout is a specific beer style using dark malts and roasted barley to get that black color and flavors of roast coffee. Irish Stout is a fairly bitter beer but is lower in alcohol than many dark beers with an ABV of 3.8 to 5%. Irish Stouts can also be served on draft using nitrogen gas instead of carbon dioxide – the term nitro will be used in the description. Serving a beer on tap using nitrogen will provide a thick off-white head that is very persistent. The smaller bubbles produced by nitrogen gas versus carbon dioxide dissipates very slowly leaving a persistent head of foam. The nitrogen also gives the beer a creamy, light mouthfeel. Guinness invented a widget to place in their canned beer that mimics the nitro draft beer, pouring with the smaller bubbles and persistent head.
If you cannot find Guinness then here are a few alternatives. From Ireland, look for Murphy’s Irish Stout, O’Hara’s Irish Stout, and Beamish Irish Stout which are all fine examples of Irish Stout. If you find these beers in cans or bottles – the beer will not have the nitrogen widgets, like Guinness, and will not have the creamy mouthfeel or persistent head of foam. These are still very good beers. As always, check in with your local craft brewer for their rendition of an Irish Stout. Bone Hook Brewing has a Celtic Irish Stout as well as Coastal Dayz Brewery with Kracken’s Curse Irish Stout.
If you are not a fan of bitter beers, then there are other varieties of stouts that might be more appealing. British Stouts including Sweet or Milk Stout and Oatmeal Stout are two options. Sweet or Milk Stout is brewed with lactose, which is not fermented by brewing yeasts. This leaves a residual sweetness to this stout – it has been compared to chocolate milk or a sweet coffee drink. Oatmeal Stout is brewed with oatmeal which makes this beer really smooth and rich. The flavor is coffee with a bit of nuttiness from the oatmeal blunting the bitterness. Here are some examples of Milk Stout: Firestone Nitro Merlin Milk Stout, Left Hand Milk Stout, and Mackeson’s XXX Stout. Some examples of Oatmeal Stout include: Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout, and Young’s London Stout. For local breweries – Point Ybel has The Full Breakfast Milk Stout and Scotty’s Bier Works has an Oatmeal Stout.
So, as you prepare for your St. Patrick’s Day party, sample some of these many stouts and select the ones that will make your party great!
As always drink responsibly!
