Stout Lovers, This Ones for You.
Calling all c h o c o l a t e lovers, semi sweet dessert lovers, and c o f f e e lovers, stouts are your best friend. It wasn’t until two years ago that I really started to enjoy them. I guess when you have a baby everything changes, including your beer pallet. This may sound a little random but I actually love maltiness, how you can add as much coffee as you want, how it looks in a beer mug, how it pours, and how it could be dinner, dessert, or in some cases a mid day pick me up.
My all time favorite is a Guinness, an Irish stout. I can probably drink two pints and I’ll be full for the night. I love the silky smoothness of it and how incredibly easy it is to drink (for me at least). When my son was six months I even tested it out the ol “drink stouts and you’ll produce more milk” theory. And surprisingly it worked, I drank two pints of Guinness one night and my morning pump session was double the amount. Now I didn’t do this very often, but when I did, I was never let down.
Now I know getting into stouts can be intimidating by the color, but don’t let it fool you! I’d also be aware that they tend to have higher alcohol content. I’ll get more into detail about my top 5 favorites in another post. So without further ado, here are some stouts that you can jump into, it’s listed by the subtle beers first.
Organic Chocolate Stout, Samual Smith Old Brewery (5%) [English style stout]
Double Chocolate Stout, Young’s Brewing Co. (5.2%) [English sweet Milk stout]
Cherry Choctabulous, Rogue Brewing Co. (8.4%) [Milk stout with cherry & chocolate]
Map 40, Allagash Brewing Co. (7.5%) [Belgian style blended with cold brew]
Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing Co. (8.3%) [blended with 2 types of coffees, chocolate, & oats]
Kalamazoo Stout, Bell’s Brewing Co. (6%) [notes of chocolate & freshly roasted coffee]
Black House, Modern Times Beer (5.8%) [brewed with their own roasted coffee & oatmeal]
Yeti, Great Divide Brewing Co. (9.5%) [blended with chocolate, coffee, & burnt caramel]
Old Rasputin, North Coast Brewing Co. (9%) [Russian Imperial Stout]
Dragons Milk, New Holland Brewing Co. (11%) [Bourbon barrel aged stout]