Irish Stout
I grew up listening to the band Thin Lizzy, but didn’t know much about them other than the lyrics to some of their songs. Later in life, a visit to Dublin, Ireland gave me some of the back story. Their late singer and bass player Phil Lynott (pronounced ‘linnit’ not ‘lye-not’) is something of a local working-class hero, having grown up in Dublin. One late night drinking session with some local homebrewers ultimately led to me getting my photo taken with his statue. So, for me, Phil Lynott and Guinness Stout are forever linked.
Members of the National Homebrew Club in Ireland helped me better understand the range and variety of Irish beer, also gained through, ahem, extensive field research. One thing they stressed was that Guinness Stout is somewhat of a unique product and that there are other regional variations, such as those stouts made further south in Cork, that have a different flavor profile. Previous writings I had seen on the style tended to focus on Guinness to the exclusion of others.
Historically, stouts were brewed to several different strengths. These trips helped educate me on the differences in the beers, and that there really is a stronger Irish extra stout that is more like historical beers than the more modern Irish stout. I had tended to lump them together because of how Guinness was marketed in the U.S. I knew the bottle and draft products were different but I assumed I was just seeing stronger export versions. Separating the styles makes the discussion much simpler.
Irish stout, sometimes known as dry stout or Irish dry stout to distinguish it from other sweeter-tasting stouts, is style 15B in the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) Style Guidelines. It is part of category 15, Irish Beer, along with Irish red ale and Irish extra stout.
Irish Stout History
Stout has its roots in porters of the 1700s — in fact, stout is a shortened version of stout porter, which meant a stronger and fuller-bodied porter. At the time, stout was a term meaning strong, not a distinct style (sort of like how “imperial” is often used in modern times to refer to stronger beers). Porter began as a London product, but its popularity as an export eventually led to it being brewed elsewhere, including Ireland. The Guinness brewery dates to 1759 and began brewing porter in the 1770s. By 1799, Guinness began only brewing porter — a version that was a stronger beer similar to today’s foreign extra stout.
Guinness began calling their beer a “stouter kind of porter” around 1810, which was ultimately shortened to stout. Stout was brewed in different strengths with modern Irish stout being derived from the single stout or plain porter product (a beer Guinness discontinued in 1973). Double stout (also known as extra stout or extra superior stout) is what is now known as Irish extra stout. An even stronger version was export stout, later called foreign extra stout.
English beer writer Roger Protz in Classic Stout and Porter wrote that Arthur Guinness II (the son of the brewery’s founder) experimented with the recipes of his porters in such a way to create the distinctive style later known as dry Irish stout. He changed the composition of his beers to avoid paying too much tax to the British government since tax was based on the raw materials used until 1880 and malt was more heavily taxed than grain.
Stout has its roots in porters of the 1700s — in fact, stout is a shortened version of stout porter, which meant a stronger and fuller-bodied porter.
Several other types of porter and stout are derived from the original London porters of the 1700s such as sweet stout (also known as milk stout or cream stout), oatmeal stout, tropical stout, American stout, American porter, Baltic porter, oyster stout, and the higher alcohol imperial stout (sometimes called Russian imperial stout or Russian export stout). Different breweries made various strengths of stouts under different names, although as gravities dropped through the two World Wars, many of these were discontinued.
Irish stouts and English stouts began to diverge in type and formulation in the late 1800s as the popularity of porter waned. Irish stouts often used roasted barley (particularly Guinness) while English brewers continued to make their porter-derived beers mostly from pale, brown, and black malts. Guinness introduced their draught Guinness product after World War II, which used a mixed-gas dispense system of nitrogen and carbon dioxide (often called a nitro dispense). In the late 1980s and 1990s, nitrogen “widgets” were added to canned and bottled versions of draught Guinness. Other Irish breweries followed suit and nitro dispense became closely associated with Irish stout.
Bear in mind that other Irish breweries besides Guinness make this style and that their histories are different. The breweries originally from Cork (Beamish and Murphy’s, both since sold several times to larger brewing groups) and some craft-era breweries (such as Porter House and O’Hara’s, both dating from the mid-1990s) make stout with a slightly different flavor profile from Guinness. While Guinness obviously dominates production of stout, the style is broader than that one well-known brand.
So, like many styles with a long history, what we drink today from commercial breweries is something created after World War II. That’s around three-quarters of a century, but not quite the continuous line back to 1759 that some people assume. The lower-gravity beer we know today as Irish stout was not the original stout and it did not lead to the development of higher-gravity styles. In fact, the relationship is the opposite, and modern Irish stout is a descendant of the historical style family that began in London.
Sensory Profile
In the often-overlooked style series book Stout by Michael Lewis (1995), there is some very good information about the style family but it sometimes needs some interpretation to fit into a structured style guidelines format. It sounds somewhat trite to say that a stout is a black beer called a stout by the brewer who made it, but that’s basically true. From a sensory standpoint, the two most important parts about a stout is that it is a black beer, and that it has flavor and aroma coming from roasted materials (grains or malt). The book was about all types of stouts, not just Irish stout, so a generic statement like that was needed so as to not be immediately contradicted by examples.
Irish stout is indeed black, and often has a flavor similar to coffee. Commercial examples served with a nitro pour will have a dense, creamy tan head created through cascading bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass. Homebrew should not be held to the same standard — a persistent, tan-colored head is sufficient. If the beer is held to a strong light, it can look a very dark ruby and be clear, but in a normal glass and pub lighting, it should be black in color and opaque.
The aroma and flavor are coffee-like, and there may be some dark chocolate, cocoa, or other roasted grain notes present. There may or may not be a light hop character or fruity esters in the aroma or flavor. Some versions may have a very light malty sweetness, but most are fairly dry in the finish. The bitterness level can seem moderately balanced to quite bitter. Those with a touch of caramel or malty sweetness can take the edge off the dry, bitter finish. The roasted character should be pleasant and not have acrid, burnt, carbonized, ashen, or harsh flavors.
Mouthfeel can be difficult to describe since commercial nitro dispense versions will be different than most carbonated homebrew versions. Nitro versions are very creamy with very little carbonation (all the carbonation in the beer is used to create that dense head). Homebrew versions can have more body and carbonation, but rarely have anything approaching the creamy mouthfeel of commercial versions. As a lower-alcohol beer, it should not have any alcohol warmth.
Brewing Ingredients and Methods
Guinness uses three ingredients in the grist: Pale ale malt, unmalted flaked barley, and unmalted roasted barley. Other breweries use a variety of dark malts or grain: Chocolate malt, black malt, even roasted wheat. Crystal-type malts may be present in small amounts. Adjuncts affecting body and texture may be used, such as flaked barley, flaked oats, or flaked wheat. Some homebrewers use malts like Carapils® to increase body. The flaked grains can increase both body and head retention. If oats are used at all, they should not be a large portion of the grist, under 5%, since their flavor is not typical in this style.
As with other ales, porters, and stouts, single infusion mashing is conventional. Since the finish is typically dry, mashing at lower saccharification temperatures is appropriate as starchy adjuncts are providing the body-building dextrins, not mash temperature control. Mashing between 140–149 °F (60–65 °C) should work. If the dark grains are included in the mash, care should be taken with the water profile to buffer their acidic nature, lest the mash pH drop too low. This normally means using carbonate water, although I use low mineral water with the dark grains added after the mash is complete. Guinness uses a similar method of adding the dark color and flavor elements after the mash in some of their versions and Guinness gets their low mineral water from springs in the Wicklow Mountains, not Dublin’s River Liffey.
Hops are frequently British and there is often little to no flavor or aroma contribution. Any neutral bittering hop should work, but if a late hop character is desired, something like Fuggles or Goldings would be appropriate. Yeast is also not a major component of the style, so a neutral to slightly fruity, attenuative strain will work. I would use something English or Irish, although a neutral American strain also can be used. Ale-like fermentation temperatures in the 64–68 °F (18–20 °C) range are common.
Homebrew Example
My recipe produces a beer more like Beamish than Guinness — it has a more complex grain bill and less bitterness than a Guinness Draught Stout. I would use grains from the British Isles (English, Scottish, or Irish), including the dark grains and crystal malt. The debittered black malt can be from anywhere. I don’t think it’s necessary to use best quality pale ale malt in this beer; Maris Otter is probably wasted. I do think the darker malts from the U.K. have a better flavor for this type of beer, so I would find those. The crystal malt can be around 80 °L, but anything in the 65 to 90 °L range will do.
Irish stout is a dry beer so the mash temperature is on the lower end for saccharification, but notice that the flaked barley is there to provide body. The other dark malts provide flavor and color, while the crystal malt adds a touch of sweetness to take the edge off the roast. I would avoid using calcium sulfate in this beer since it doesn’t need the sulfury sharpness and it also doesn’t need the pH dropped lower.
English hops and yeast are used. Other English hops can certainly be used; they are primarily there for bitterness. I’ve used higher alpha hops like Challenger successfully. I prefer attenuative English yeast strains in this style, as sometimes I’ve found the ones labeled Irish can leave a little buttery diacetyl. The yeast doesn’t need to be overly fruity, but it should be one that will fully attenuate wort. Fermentation temperatures are restrained, again to avoid making the beer overly fruity.
If you’re looking for something more like Guinness, use 70% pale ale malt, 20% flaked barley, and 10% roasted barley in the grist, and increase the IBUs to around 45. The rest of the recipe can stay the same. Even if you brew the version that comes from Cork, I think you can still raise a few pints to Dubliner Phil Lynott and enjoy a very sessionable beer.
Irish Stout by the Numbers
OG: 1.036–1.044
FG: 1.007–1.011
SRM: 25–40
IBU: 25–45
ABV: 3.8–5.0%
Irish Stout
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.039 FG = 1.008
IBU = 38 SRM = 40 ABV = 4.1%
Ingredients
5.5 lbs. (2.5 kg) pale ale malt
1.25 lbs. (567 g) flaked barley
1 lb. (454 g) roasted barley
0.5 lb. (227 g) chocolate malt
0.25 lb. (113 g) crystal malt (80 °L)
0.25 lb. (113 g) debittered black malt
9.6 AAU UK Goldings hops (60 min.) (1.75 oz./50 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
1.4 AAU UK Goldings hops (10 min.) (0.25 oz./7 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), White Labs WLP013 (London Ale), or SafAle S-04 yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (for priming)
Step by Step
This recipe uses reverse osmosis (RO) water. Adjust all brewing water to a pH of 5.5 using phosphoric acid. Add 1 tsp. of calcium chloride to the strike water.
This recipe uses a single infusion mash. Use enough water to have a moderately thick mash (1.5 qts./lb. or 3.1 L/kg). Mash in the pale ale malt and flaked barley at 144 °F (62 °C) and hold for 60 minutes. Begin recirculating, add the dark grains and crystal malt, then raise the mash temperature to 169 °F (76 °C), and recirculate for 15 minutes.
Sparge slowly and collect 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of wort in the brew kettle and bring wort up to a boil. Boil the wort for 90 minutes, adding hops at the times indicated.
Chill the wort to 64 °F (18 °C), pitch the yeast, aerate if necessary, and ferment until complete.
Rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate. If you have the means to serve this on a nitro dispense system, it is highly recommended to provide that creamy mouthfeel that the style is well known for.
Irish Stout
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.039 FG = 1.008
IBU = 38 SRM = 40 ABV = 4.1%
Ingredients
3.25 lbs. (1.5 kg) light dried malt extract
0.5 lb. (227 g) Carapils® malt
1 lb. (454 g) roasted barley
0.5 lb. (227 g) chocolate malt
0.25 lb. (113 g) crystal malt (80 °L)
0.25 lb. (113 g) debittered black malt
9.6 AAU UK Goldings hops (60 min.) (1.75 oz./50 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
1.4 AAU UK Goldings hops (10 min.) (0.25 oz./7 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), White Labs WLP013 (London Ale), or SafAle S-04 yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (for priming)
Step by Step
Use 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of water in the brew kettle; heat to 158 °F (70 °C). Steep the grains in a mesh bag for 30 minutes, then rinse gently, removing the grains.
Turn off the heat. Add the malt extract and stir thoroughly to dissolve completely. Turn the heat back on and bring to a boil.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding hops at the times indicated.
Chill the wort to 64 °F (18 °C), pitch the yeast, aerate if necessary, and ferment until complete.
Rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
Tips For Success:
While this is a fairly forgiving style to craft a good example, it’s attention to details that will take it to the next level. Fresh ingredients, fermentation control, and minimizing oxidation during transfers will really allow those malty, roasted coffee, and chocolate flavors to pop. If you can serve on nitro with a nitro faucet, this is the perfect opportunity.
