by John Mizer
February 7, 2007

Why do so many people dislike dark beer? This phenomenon I may never know. Sure, I've heard all of the reasons: "it's too thick", "it's too bitter"," it fills me up", etc. Put simply-dark beer is essentially not much different than lighter colored beer with the exception of the use of a darker barley malt. In other words-the darker the malt used-the darker the beer will be. A paler malt will still make up the majority of your grains in order to provide natural starches and sugars for fermentation. What the drinker is tasting is the roasting of the malt(similar to roasted coffee bean) and the hops to keep the beer balanced. A small amount of chocolate or black malt will go a long way to provide the dark color and roasted flavor that is featured in a darker ale or lager. We'll focus on the most popular of dark beers: the stout.

Stouts are actually a spin off confection of porters. A couple of centuries back, the individual ingredients of beer were becoming heavily taxed with barley malt leading the way, making up most of the cost. Brewers began to use unmalted barley in addition to barley malt as a loophole to the taxed ingredients (unmalted barley wasn't listed as a taxable beer ingredient). The result was a thicker, heavier version of the porter and the stout was born.

Today, stouts are found in a variety of styles such as Sweet, Milk, Oatmeal, Irish, Imperial, Oyster, Coffee, Chocolate and Hazelnut to name a few. Brewers have found that certain fruits blend wonderfully in stouts including cherries and raspberries. Food pairing with stouts is easy as it goes well with red meat, barbecue, blackened seafood, spicy cheeses and many desserts. Try washing your chocolate cake down with a coffee or chocolate stout- simply divine.

I've found over the years that many people who don't particularly care for the taste of beer in general will find themselves enjoying the taste of a stout-especially coffee drinkers.

Cheers!