Hello STOUT Fellow

A brief lesson on one of life's most mysterious brews

       When thinking about beer styles and flavor profiles, their aren't many that can match the complexity and wide range like a good old stout. Now I know that a lot of you can only equate the word stout with a certain famous Irish beer that was once billed as being good "for your strength", but this coal black beer has more attitude than Roseanne Barr at the DMV line.
          Stouts are neat because they can be sweet or or very bitter. They can be heavy and viscous like oil, or runny and rather one dimensional. They are often described as "meaty", "smokey" or "roasty" and can be brewed with anything from chocolate to shellfish (yes I said shellfish). Stouts are also quite fantastic because they age well in barrels and tend to take on some (or a lot) of the characteristics of these aging vessels.
          Although I wouldn't say that stouts are even near the top of my list of favorite beer styles, I find them to be quite intriguing. On a routine visit to a decent beer establishment, I would place my bet that you will see a few different examples of this marvelous style. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what happened when I went into Sonoma Wine and Spirits the other day. My good friend Ron had just gotten a case each of the Goose Island Night Stalker and the Goose Island Bourbon County Coffee Stout. Now, as I mentioned before, as a whole I'm not particularly fond of stouts, but I have had a few that are simply mind-blowingly good (North Coast Old Rasputin is one of my favorite U.S. stouts). At this point, I said to myself "wouldn't it be a great idea to try both of these stouts back-to-back and compare my notes on each." Gee Dustin, you sure are full of good ideas sometimes.
         I shared the beer with my girlfriend/tasting assistant Lani, and we both came up with a combined list for each. The Goose Island Night Stalker clocks in at 11.5% ABV and reminded me of a dark chocolate brownie. It pours black coffee black with very little head and had lingering aromas of molasses, espresso and had a bit of an earthy quality. With a slight burn in the chest, I took this one like a pro and Lani compared it's sweet/smokey combination to a good BBQ sauce.
         Where my first beer was sweet and surprisingly hoppy, the Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout brought to mind notes of coconut, marzipan and bourbon-soaked raisins. Very full bodied with a sea salt caramel finish, this beer played with my taste buds like a a fine index finger to a harp string. The coffee was surprisingly toned down, but also quite complex. Redolent of a latte (coffee with steamed milk), this beer was stellar! The balance between sweet and off-salty reminded me of kettle corn and for this factor alone I will definitely go out of my way to get another bottle.
         Goose Island is a great brewery and probably Illinois' most well known. In light of this little "competition" I just want to be clear that this process wasn't about declaring one beer better than the next. I simply wanted to illustrate how the same style of beer, from the same brewery (even bottled within about a week of one another) can taste so vastly different. if you're the least bit interested in beer, do your mouth a favor and drink lots of it. Try everything, and don't let one less than perfect beer keep you away from drinking that style. Stouts are a fabulous place to start, so if you get the chance, line up a few and let me know what you think. Happy stouting!

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