Dark, rich, creamy, and smooth. A classic, classy beer that’s as refreshing as it is nutritious. Stouts are guaranteed to stimulate your taste buds and quench your thirst. Rich in history and in flavour, stouts are one of the most interesting types of beer. Read on to find out what exactly stout is, where it came from, and what it tastes like.

What is a stout?

Stouts (and porters) are dark beers that are top-fermented like other ales (lagers are bottom fermented) and known for their heavier, more flavoursome body than other beers. The most famous being a certain Dublin-born pint of ’the black stuff’.

Stouts evolved from porters. Porter beer, a well-hopped brew made from brown malt, was first brewed in London in the 18th century and was popular with street and river porters (the folks who carried things around for others). Hence the name. The word stout originally meant ‘proud’ or ‘brave’, but later on came to mean ’strong’. Historically a stout beer could mean any strong beer, even lagers or pale ales, but nowadays it’s only used for the dark porter-style brews.

What is the difference between stout and porter?

These days, ’stout’ tends to describe dry stouts (with a small amount of unmalted, roasted barley), milk stouts or sweet stouts. While ‘porter’ describes a beer flavoured with roast malted barley. The two are so interchangeable though, they often appear alongside each other on a label.

What does stout taste like?

Stout is a flavoursome variety of beer. As it’s usually made with roasted malt, flavours like coffee, chocolate, and even tobacco can make themselves known.

There’s a wide variety of stouts out there, including milk stout, Irish (dry) stout, oatmeal stout, chocolate stout, oyster stout, imperial stout, and Baltic porter. A meal in a glass, you might call them, whichever one you choose.

Oatmeal stout, for example, is brewed with oats, which gives them a full, slightly sweet flavour. Oyster stouts are slightly bitter, slightly sweet stouts that are occasionally brewed with actual oysters – mostly though, they’re just a great accompaniment to an oyster dish. (Vegetarians beware, though – just in case.)

Our Satin Stout is smooth and silky, with a balanced sweetness and plenty of roast malt character. Whereas our Chocolate Honeycomb Stout is more mellow with a delicious chocolatey honeycomb malty sweetness.

How strong is stout?

As the name suggests, stouts are amongst the stronger of the beers. So you’ll likely see them range from 5% to 8%, although Irish dry stouts can be lower (around 3.5% ABV), and Imperial stouts can be really strong, between 8 and 11% ABV.

Our Satin Stout is 4.5% ABV, a dark, silky smooth beer with rich coffee, burnt chocolate and chewy caramel undertones.

There’s also our Chocolate Honeycomb Stout, at 5.5%, which is a much sweeter stout for those sweet tooth beer fans!